{"id":14299,"date":"2026-08-21T14:45:25","date_gmt":"2026-08-21T21:45:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/?p=14299"},"modified":"2026-09-07T14:48:51","modified_gmt":"2026-09-07T21:48:51","slug":"mr-packards-little-garage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/2026\/08\/21\/mr-packards-little-garage\/","title":{"rendered":"Mr. Packard&#8217;s Little Garage"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.coolidgereview.com\/articles\/garage-silicon-valley\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">from Coolidge Review<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\">THE GARAGE WHERE SILICON VALLEY BEGAN<\/h1>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">By Christopher DeMuth<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image is-resized\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images.squarespace-cdn.com\/content\/v1\/603cf035dde1340721bf0e3f\/98b696cd-591a-4b87-afb4-5b958a62e80f\/HewlettPackard2.jpg\" alt=\"\" style=\"aspect-ratio:1.9320214669051878;width:1080px;height:auto\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><em>Dave Packard (left) and Bill Hewlett launched their company from Packard\u2019s garage in Palo Alto, the birthplace of Silicon Valley<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The 1960s and 1970s were decades of busy, bossy, Washington-centered government: Great Society programs. Wage-and-price controls. New national departments of Education and Energy. New agencies regulating health, safety, environmental quality, civil rights, and much else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Most of those initiatives fell radically short of their promises, and many of them made matters worse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As federal spending surged, the United States experienced \u201cstagflation,\u201d combining high inflation and high unemployment. By 1980 the \u201cmisery index\u201d topped 20&nbsp;percent\u201413.5&nbsp;percent inflation plus 7.2&nbsp;percent unemployment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Even in the face of these impositions, the economy chugged along respectably. Gross Domestic Product doubled between 1960 and 1980, averaging 3.6&nbsp;percent growth annually despite four recessions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A critical driver was new-and-improved technology. Commercial jet airline service appeared in the early 1960s, speeding business and personal travel. The price of a five-minute coast-to-coast telephone call, measured in today\u2019s dollars, fell from about $40 in 1960 to $2 in 1980.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But technology, to achieve its promise in full, required skilled technologists with a spirit of enterprise and a taste for adventure. These it found in California\u2019s Santa Clara County, which would soon be known as Silicon Valley.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">[ <a href=\"https:\/\/www.coolidgereview.com\/articles\/garage-silicon-valley\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">click to continue reading at Coolidge Review<\/a> ]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>from Coolidge Review THE GARAGE WHERE SILICON VALLEY BEGAN By Christopher DeMuth The 1960s and 1970s were decades of busy, bossy, Washington-centered government: Great Society programs. Wage-and-price controls. New national departments of Education and Energy. New agencies regulating health, safety, environmental quality, civil rights, and much else. Most of those initiatives fell radically short of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture-art"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14299"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14299\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14300,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14299\/revisions\/14300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}