Biographies of Silicon Valley protagonists

A History of Silicon Valley

This biography is an appendix to my book "A History of Silicon Valley"

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Philo Farnsworth

Philo Farnsworth (Utah, 1906) grew up in a farm in Idaho. He had to take numerous jobs to support his family after his father died. Eventually, still a teenager, he settled in Salt Lake City and opened a radio repair store. He couldn't afford to complete his studies at Brigham Young University, but he told his ideas for television to San Francisco-based philanthropists Leslie Gorrell and George Everson, who accepted to funded a laboratory in California. At the age of 20 he moved to San Francisco, founded the Crocker Research Laboratories (named after his main venture capitalist, William Crocker), and in september 1927 he carried out the first successful all-electronic television broadcast. The first human image ever transmitted was the face of his wife Elma in october 1929. The company was first renamed Television Laboratories and then in may 1929 Farnsworth Television. His team included the young Russ Varian and Ralph Heintz. The power of RCA, however, was such that the Russian-born scientist Vladimir Zworkyn of their New Jersey laboratories was credited by the media with inventing television. Farnsworth's reputation was saved by his good San Francisco friend Donald Lippincott, formerly a Magnavox engineer and now an attorney, who in 1930 defended the young inventor's intellectual property against RCA. In 1931 the investors decided to cash in, and they sold the company to the Philadelphia Storage Battery Company (later renamed Philco), at the time the main maker of home radios in the USA and therefore in a much better position to mass-manufacture television sets. In june of that year Farnsworth moved to Philadelphia to work at Philco's laboratories. RCA's power was such that, even if vindicated in court, Farnsworth's invention was commercially unsuccessful. He left Philco in 1933 and returned to San Francisco trying to launch a career as a television broadcaster. Philco had not done much with his technology: the first public demonstration of his television was held in Philadelphia in august 1934 when Philco had already terminated his project. In 1938 he decided to move to Indiana and opened the Farnsworth Television and Radio Corporation. In 1939 RCA finally bought the rights on Farnsworth's technology for its TV sets. In 1951 Farnsworth's company was acquired by another colossus, International Telephone and Telegraph (ITT). In their labs Farnsworth engaged in several research projects, including nuclear fusion. In 1967 ITT decided to shut down his laboratory and Farnsworth was hired by Brigham Young University in Utah to continue his research on nuclear fusion. He also tried to start his own business but instead went bankrupt and died having lost all his money.

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