Podcast EP6: The Traitorous Eight and Fairchild Semiconductor
Dan and Mike are joined by John East, a silicon valley industry veteran who takes you on a tour of the very foundation of Silicon Valley and venture capital. John explores the beginnings of these key parts of the world as we know it today and explains who the Traitorous Eight are and what role they played.
Biography
John East retired from Actel Corporation in November 2010 in conjunction with the transaction in which Actel was purchased by Microsemi Corporation. He had served as the CEO of Actel for 22 years at the time of his retirement. Previously, he was a senior vice president of AMD, where he was responsible for the Logic Products Group. Prior to that, Mr. East held various engineering, marketing, and management positions at Raytheon Semiconductor and Fairchild Semiconductor. In the past he has served on the boards of directors of Adaptec, Pericom and Zehntel (public companies), and MCC, Atrenta and Single Chip Systems (private companies). He currently serves on the boards of directors of SPARK Microsystems – a Canadian start-up involved in high speed, low power radios — and Tortuga Logic — a Silicon Valley start-up involved in hardware security. Additionally, he is presently an advisor to Silicon Catalyst — a Silicon Valley based incubator actively engaged in fostering semiconductor based start-ups. Mr. East holds a BS degree in Electrical Engineering and an MBA both from the University of California, Berkeley. He has lived in Saratoga, California with his wife Pam for 46 years.
The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in these podcasts belong solely to the speaker, and not to the speaker’s employer, organization, committee or any other group or individual.
Podcast EP267: The Broad Impact Weebit Nano’s ReRAM is having with Coby Hanoch