Maximum Impact: Maxim’s Quiet Rise as Silicon Valley’s Most Prolific Analog Chip Maker

Maximum Impact: Maxim’s Quiet Rise as Silicon Valley’s Most Prolific Analog Chip Maker by Tunç Doluca 

Maximum Impact is part biography of Jack Gifford and part history of Maxim Semiconductor. Even if Jack had not founded Maxim, he would have been a key player in Silicon Valley. He was the leader of analog products at Fairchild Semiconductor. He cofounded AMD. He became CEO of Intersil. And in between he worked in farming and other endeavors. He eventually founded Maxim and lead the company through it's early growth phase, passing away a short time after he left the company.

Jack went to UCLA to play baseball before "stumbling" into the semiconductor industry. He had hard-driving, yet family oriented management style that would likely not pass muster today. He ended up leaving the company as a stock-options backdating scandal unfolded. Maxim had almost always picked the "low price" for option valuations to give employees the best option value. This "backdating" was found to only benefit the rank and file, and not be used to enrich executives.

Maxim itself rose as a pure-play analog semiconductor company. There were lean days at the start, but the company persevered to become a behemoth in the industry. The book is full of plenty of analog semiconductor jargon. Those with intimate knowledge of the industry would likely understand the detailed significance of the events. For the rest of us, the book makes clear that these were some important things that happened.

The book was written primarily by the second (and final) CEO of Maxim. It is filled with quotes from people that played a role in the early days of the company. Many of the stories will be familiar to those that lived through the industry. The book provides a glimpse into the inner workings of a less well-known Silicon Valley success story.

Start-Up Nation: The Story of Israel's Economic Miracle

A book like Start-Up Nation takes great risks in drawing broad conclusions from a narrow span of time. Israel has had a few decades of great growth and entrepreneurial activity. However, there were a previous few decades of slow growth. Was this growth spurt a revision to the mean or something lasting? 

The military is an important part of Israeli life. Everyone must spend time in the military unless they have a specific exemption (such as religious orthodoxy.) The armed services serve as a special training ground. People get opportunities to be creative and lead. The country faces existential threats with a low-resourced military. This gives the youth many opportunities to master skills of doing more with less independently. They also develop relationships in the service that carry forward to their reserve activities. 

Other countries, such as Korea and Singapore have mandatory military service, yet they do not have the same entrepreneurial activity. The author speculates it is cultural. The Asian countries tend to be very subservient to authority, while Israelis will actively question rulers. Even Israeli political leaders are often referred to by common nicknames.

Israel went through a fairly unique formation process. It was a "restoration" of a state that had not existed for a few Millennia. The people had been greatly persecuted (with the holocaust happening immediately before Israeli independence. The neighbors are also extremely hostile towards Israel. It is not easy to survive. Yet, the new country has survived and thrived. The Jewish population has regularly been active participants in culture and the economy. There has often been criticism due to Jewish overrepresentation. Could it be Israel's success is just do to its Jewishness?

Could it also be that there is just a fluke? Many of Israel's startups are security based. This could be directly related to the importance of security in society. There are also others that seem to be tied directly to Israeli needs (such as irrigation). Despite these many startups, there are few companies that would be pointed out as essential companies or tech behemoths. The book mentions the electric car start up "Better Place". It had buzz, but never made it anywhere. Meanwhile, there are oodles of Teslas around today. Why hasn't Israel been able to create a dominating startup?

Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future

Peter Thiel had gone to Stanford Law School and was hoping to clerk for a supreme court justice and begin the "normal" law career. That did not end up panning out. He flopped around a few things before starting in venture capital. He had some failures before he helped start PayPal and begin a successful career in Silicon Valley. He is somewhat different than the typical silicon valley entrepreneur as gay libertarian who majored in Philosophy before going to law school.

In Zero to One, Thiel provides notes from his experiences in startups. The big start ups focus on big changes. There is space for small incremental improvements, but that is not as likely to lead to giant success. It is also important to know the market. Dominating a small market is different from being a small player in a big market. The human factors can also play an important role in the success or failure of a company. Ownership, possession and control are important factors in the success and motivation of companies. With startups they are often closely aligned, but still sometimes in conflict. With large companies, rent seeking behavior can be more common.

There is some advice on what to do (or not to do) to achieve success. However, this book comes across more as notes on what has been done. The big picture motivation can be more important than the minor details. Sometimes it is the small thing of "sticking with it" - something that the more autistic engineering minds can excell at.

The Mom Test: How to talk to customers & learn if your business is a good idea when everyone is lying to you

Getting good feedback for a new idea requires asking the right questions. People will generally try to make you happy. If you ask them if your new idea will work, the will likely say yes. Instead, the key is to ask questions in a way that even your Mom would provide useful feedback. Get people to talk about themselves. What are their pain points? How do they get around it now? Is it truly something painful enough that would like a better solution? (Or are they comfortable with a current workaround?) The goal is to get a better understanding rather than pitch a solution. This understanding can happen in brief informal settings rather than formal meetings. It is also important to have appropriate actions. If the meeting is more formal, there should be some sort of next steps. This may be an introduction to other people, or even a realization that this is not something worth pursuing. It is also valuable to get the "hard questions" out there early. It is much better to fail early than to putter around for a while before the massive failure. Regardless of what questions are asked, recording the feedback is critically important. Even the "back of the napkin" notes should be recorded in a common platform and shared widely among the team.