Venture Capital didn't actually exist when Fairchild was founded. The company was named Fairchild Semiconductor because the main funder was Sherman Fairchild of Fairchild Camera and Instrument. They were connected by a twentysomething named Arthur Rock who'd recently ditched corporate finance in NY. Rock also later invested in Intel.

Much of VC actually grew out of Fairchild. Eugene Kleiner of KPCB was one of the Fairchild founders, and Don Valentine was a Fairchild sales+marketing exec before starting Sequoia. Those two firms essentially invented modern day VC investing, and you could say Fairchild was the first experiment that worked.

It's also worth noting how much VC has grown since then. Intel only raised 2.5MM before going public. Technology is now much more broad, and there's more money to fund diverse companies. Back then, tech was a niche industry.

Hard science is certainly still getting funded out here -- see Counsyl, LightSail Energy, etc. -- but I think lots of investors are now looking at existing industries that can be flipped via software (cue pmarca's "software is eating the world" neo-adage). The "Stanford startup" that Amir describes is moreso a tech-enabled company, rather than a hard tech company. They're both valuable, but should be seen as apples and oranges.

Maybe it's because I went to MIT and am perhaps foolishly ambitious, but I personally get frustrated when I see super talented people go after easy industries. The one that comes to mind is house cleaning services. It's possible I just don't get the potential, but it's disheartening to see ultra-educated young people trying to figure out how to disrupt a low-margin industry dominated by mostly illegal immigrant workers. Not something I'd want in my epitaph I guess.

The sweet spot is probably somewhere in the middle. Work with wicked smart people, have audacious goals, and focus on shipping and being relevant today.

As an aside, I don't know why everyone is hating on Snapchat. They are riding a massive wave -- the social behavioral shift in how people share online -- which is really not to be underestimated. It's strategic for them to fly under the radar and be disregarded as a stupid toy right now. But if you look at the team they've gathered, see their metrics, or actually talk to Evan, you immediately know that it's something special on the order of YouTube or Twitter.