POSTERITY would have been kinder to William Shockley had he not survived a head-on collision with a drunk driver in 1961. Then 51, he had won the Nobel prize in physics for his work on the transistor, and was a leader in the hot field of semiconductor physics. As an entrepreneur, he had brought the first semiconductor company to Silicon Valley. His death would have been mourned as a tragically early end to a brilliant career.
Yet by 1961 Shockley’s best years were behind him. His inept management had driven away eight top men from Shockley Semiconductor and the company was fading fast. Most disastrously, Shockley’s…
