The ‘traitorous eight’ referring to Gordon Moore, C. Sheldon Roberts, Eugene Weiner, Robert Noyce, Victor Grinch, Julius Blank, Jean Hoerni, and Jay Last, were the giants which semiconductor industries stood on. The eight of them, all left Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory founded by William Shockley, a Nobel laureate in physics and the founder of the transistor, to Fairchild Semiconductor(founded by Sherman Fairchild and them). The left Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory due to Shockley being an authoritarian and poor manager. Before the term 'Silicon Valley Startup' was born Fairchild Semiconductor produce Microchip technology, Planar technology, and several others. The Intel Corporation was founded by two of the 'traitorous eight' - Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore. One of the key investors of Intel founded a firm that would later found Amazon, Compaq, Genentech, Intuit, Lotus, Macromedia, Netscape, Sun Microsystems. The founder of Apple, Steve Jobs used to consider Robert Noyce as his Mentor. They also funded Intelsil which creates market CMOS circuits. In short, the 'traitorous eight' really are genius amidst genius.