Thursday, March 6, 2014
San Gabriel Valley: Bitcoin Creator Not The Only Inventor In Town
If it seems strange to find the inventor of Bitcoin living in the San Gabriel Valley, it's actually not all that surprising given the area is home to one of the most prominent research universities in the United States, The California Institute of Technology; NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory; and the original Internet incubator, Idealab. It's also home to many other prominent technology companies, including OpenX and NewEgg. Here's a few other inventors/inventions with links to the San Gabriel Valley.
Paid search advertising, invented at Goto.com--a spinout of Idealab--which was later acquired by Yahoo for $1.63 billion and became Yahoo Search Marketing.
The first human powered aircraft, the Gossamer Albatross, designed by Paul MacCready (founder of Monrovia-based Aerovironment).
Gordon Moore, co-founder of Intel, who got his PhD in Chemistry from Caltech, then went to co-found Fairchild Semiconductor, and built Intel from an initial $2.5 million in venture capital into one of the biggest semiconductor companies in the world.
The Mars Rovers were designed and are controlled from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Canada Flintridge.
Another Caltech inventor---William Shockley--invented the transistor, thanks to research he was doing as a visiting professor at Caltech before leaving for Mountain View and founding the first silicon device research and manufacturing company in what later became Silicon Valley.
Any notable local inventors/technology we missed? Comment below!