Know Your Competition Today
Your Competition Today:
Know your history
"More than 100 years ago, American scientist and industrialist Sherman Fairchild invented and developed a novel camera shutter/lens system and associated timing mechanism that enabled accurate aerial photography for the first time. He parlayed that success into the development of several aircraft companies as well as the Fairchild Camera and Instrument Corp. In 1957, Fairchild provided the venture capital to a group of engineers to start Fairchild Semiconductor in California. This was the beginning of “Silicon Valley” as it has come to be known." - Fairchild Imaging's "About" web page
(Image above from TechCrunch)
Fairchild Semiconductor's Famous Alumni, the foundation of Venture Capital as we know it today:
Read more about Fairchild: "The first trillion dollar startup" on TechCrunch.
As a funny little side-note, the technology parts of Fairchild might have been sold to different entities by now, but they still live on. One real-life example is the Fairchild Imaging dual gain sensor that is powering one of my digital cinema cameras, the Blackmagic Design Micro Cinema Camera (not the camera used to shoot the Pitching Masterclass, if you are wondering, though).