创业与商业steveblank.com
硅谷的“秘密”历史（2008）
"Secret" History of Silicon Valley (2008)
2011 — 2020，它一次次回到首页
黑点是上首页（≥ 50 分）的那次投稿，空心点是没冲上去的投稿，点越大分数越高。
导读
Steve Blank 的这篇文章/演讲讲述硅谷的“秘密”历史：硅谷的崛起并非单纯来自市场创业神话，而与政府、军方和冷战科研资助密不可分。文章梳理了从军工项目、半导体到互联网等创新生态如何被公共资金塑造，评论也补充了亲历者经历以及对科技巨头与情报机构关系的批评。
为什么经久不衰：它揭示了硅谷神话背后政府与军方长期资助的结构性根源，且与今天科技巨头和政府关系的争议持续相关，因此多年反复登上 Hacker News 首页。
HN 评论精选
亲历者证实硅谷与军工项目深度交织，个人职业也受军费周期影响。
我是这段历史的一部分：1983到1992年为一家军工承包商工作，1985到1990年担任DSP卫星系统（NORAD导弹预警）地面通信网络整体重建的项目工程师。我认为那是我工程生涯的巅峰：进过夏延山，因系统出问题被从夏威夷度假叫回的将军吼过，也因无意中下达命令被基地上尉吼过；还和基地军官、军士长去过丹佛的俱乐部，并得知我的系统在第一次海湾战争期间向爱国者反导电池发送预警。老布什成为总统后军费被砍，我所在的小承包商遭到重创；我后来转向数字视频压缩，这个转型很好，又给了我18年职业生涯。我可能还留着该系统通信处理器用的80186汇编代码，它实现了ADCCP协议，和HDLC一样。趁着复古计算热潮，我该把它发到GitHub上（假设5.25英寸软盘还能读）。它从未被列为机密，所以应该没问题。
drmpeg查看英文原文
I was part of this history, working for a military contractor from 1983 until 1992. From 1985 until 1990, I was project engineer for a complete rebuild of the DSP satellite system (NORAD missile warning) ground communications network. I consider it the peak of my engineering career. I got to go inside Cheyenne Mountain, got yelled at by a General when the system did something bad and he was called back from his vacation in Hawaii, got yelled at by a base captain for inadvertently giving orders, went to awesome Denver strip clubs with base officers and master sergeants, and found out that my system was sending early warning to Patriot anti-Scud batteries during the the 1st Gulf War. After George H.W. Bush became president, the military budget was slashed and small contractors like the one I was working at were decimated. I ended up pivoting into digital video compression, which was an excellent move (and provided another 18 years of career). I think I still have the 80186 assembly language code for the communications processors used on the system. They implemented a protocol called ADCCP, which is the same thing as HDLC. With all the interest in retro computing, I should publish it on Github (assuming the 5.25" diskettes are still readable). It was never classified, so that shouldn't be a problem.
批评硅谷与NSA/军方深度合作，纳税人承担研发而私人资本获利。
2014年一份FOIA请求披露了更多细节：Sergey Brin和Eric Schmidt不仅与时任NSA局长Keith Alexander将军熟到直呼其名，而且Google还是“Enduring Security Framework”这一秘密政府倡议的一部分；该倡议让硅谷与五角大楼和美国情报界合作，以“网络速度”共享信息。2013年曝出PRISM项目参与者——这个允许NSA后门访问所有大型科技公司全部信息和用户数据的非法监控项目——由NSA一个名为“Special Source Operations”的隐秘部门报销费用。硅谷的故事是政府资助技术开发、纳税人承担研发账单，而风投和高管收割纳税人资助发明利润的故事。
nibepins查看英文原文
"More details emerged from a Freedom of Information Act request in 2014, which revealed that Sergey Brin and Eric Schmidt were not only on a first name basis with then-NSA chief General Keith Alexander, but that Google was part of a “secretive government initiative known as the Enduring Security Framework,” and that this initiative involved Silicon Valley partnering with the Pentagon and the US intelligence community to share information “at network speed.” The Enduring Security Freedom initiative is just one window into how Big Tech can reap big dollars from their relationship with the NSA. In 2013, it emerged that the participants in the PRISM program—the illegal surveillance program which allowed the NSA backdoor access to all information and user data of all of the Big Tech companies—were reimbursed for the program’s expenses by a shadowy arm of the agency known as “Special Source Operations.”" https://www.corbettreport.com/siliconvalley/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqvRzRj9tHE Silicon Valley is a story of government funded tech development where taxpayers foot the R&D bill while VCs and white Executives reap the profits of taxpayer funded inventions.
早期硅谷容忍失败，如今失败污名化与大公司主导抑制创新。
这张幻灯片很突出：失败被接受为文化的一部分。今天似乎相反。任何失败的迹象都会让人远离你未来的抱负。我们似乎越来越走向由巨型公司统治的世界，小开发者几乎没有自主权或自由，服从于知识产权和保密协议的概念。修补匠建造巨大事物的时代似乎是一个短暂的历史意外。这相关，因为建造巨大事物的唯一方式就是反复失败，而这在今天似乎不可接受。
sillysaurus3查看英文原文
This slide stood out: https://i.imgur.com/t7DAgJo.jpg Failure was accepted as a part of the culture. Today it seems the opposite. Any hint of failure and people seem to distance themselves from your future ambitions. More and more, we seem to be moving toward a world ruled by massive corporations, where small developers have almost no autonomy or freedom, and we're subservient to the concept of intellectual property and non-disclosure. The age of tinkerers building something huge seems to have been a short-lived historical accident. That's related, because the only way to build something huge is to repeatedly fail at it. And that doesn't seem acceptable today.
该文多年反复登上HN，并曾引来作者本人参与讨论。
一篇优秀的文章，也是HN的常青最爱：2009年作者sblank本人参与评论；2018年有43条评论；2015年有45条评论。还有许多其他讨论链接。
dredmorbius查看英文原文
Excellent, and something of an HN perennial favourite: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=581255 (2009, w/ "sblank" commenting). https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17600305 (2018) 43 comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8980498 (2015) 45 comments. Numerous others: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=Steve%20Blank%27s%20"Secret"%20History%20of%20Silicon%20Valley&sort=byDate&type=story
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