Annapurna Labs Updated +Created
Page contains a good summary of their hardware to date. They seem to still be the centerpiece of silicon development. There are still however people outside of Israel doing it, e.g.: www.linkedin.com/in/laurasharpless/ says as of 2021:
My team develops software for our next-generation Machine Learning accelerators: HAL, firmware, and SoC models.
2021: networking chip reports emerge: www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2021/3/30/22358633/amazon-reportedly-custom-network-switch-silicon-aws, presumably contesting with the likes of Cisco?
Cisco Updated +Created
Video 1.
Nerds 2.0.1 excerpt about Cisco (1998)
Source.
History of Google Updated +Created
The 1997 Wayback Machine archives are just priceless: web.archive.org/web/19971210065425/http://backrub.stanford.edu/backrub.html. I'm so glad that website exists and started so early. It is just another university research project demo website like any other. Priceless.
In August 1998 they had an their first investment of $100,000 from Andy Bechtolsheim, Sun Microsystems co-founder. Some sources say September 1998. This was an event of legend, the dude dropped by, tested the website for a few minutes, said I like it, and dropped a 100$ check with no paperwork. Google wasn't even incorporated, they had to incorporate to cash the check. They were apparently introduced by one of the teachers, TODO which. Some sources say he had to rush off to another meeting afterwards:
Tried to sell it for 1 million in early 1999... OMG the way the world is. It would be good to learn more about that story, and when they noticed it was fuckup.
One of Google's most interesting stories is how their startup garage owner became an important figure inside Google, and how Sergei married her sister. These were the best garage tenants ever!
Video 1.
Andy Bechtolsheim's 100.000 check by Discovery UK (2018)
Source. Contains interviews with Andy Bechtolsheim and David Cheriton. The meeting happened in David Cheriton's porch. Andy showed up at 8AM, and he had a meeting at 9AM at Cisco where he worked, so he had to leave early. Andy worked at Cisco after having sold his company Granite Systems, which David co-founded, to Cisco. Particularly cool to see how Andy calculated expected revenue quickly on the back of his mind.
Video 2.
Larry Page interview on the choice of name "Alphabet" by Fortune Magazine (2015)
Source. Shows his voice situation well, poor guy.
Nerds 2.0.1 Updated +Created
Very very good. Those nice pre-Dot-com bubble vibes.
Part 1 - Networking The Nerds talks about the TCP/IP and early machines implementing it:
Part 2 - Serving the Suits
Part 3 - Wiring the World: