The famed “HP Garage,” as well as the adjoining two-story house and shed, were the birthplace of the Hewlett-Packard Company (HP), and of Silicon Valley as a center of high-tech innovation. William “Bill” Hewlett and David “Dave” Packard, who had both been students of Prof. Frederick Terman (later known as "The Father of Silicon Valley"), worked at the property between 1938 and 1940. The two men started out with $538 in working capital, including a used drill press that Packard had brought west with him. In their first major success, they sold eight units of a variable frequency oscillator they had developed to the Walt Disney Company, which needed them for the rollout of its animated classic, Fantasia. Today, HP is a Fortune 500 company with billions of dollars in annual revenues. The property at 367 Addison was the company’s headquarters until 1940, by which time the company had outgrown the original site and moved elsewhere. The property was registered as California Registered Landmark No. 976 in August 1987 and was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2007.
This was the site of Fairchild Semiconductor Corporation where engineer Robert Noyce explored the concept of using tiny wires to connect transistors within layers of silicon to create an integrated circuit that could be produced efficiently and on scale for commercial applications. Noyce built upon the work of others devising a silicon "chip" that held multiple circuit. The innovation led to the rise of the semiconductor electronics industry in the region. Today, integrated circuits are commonly referred to as "silicon chips" and found in nearly every electronic device.
Nestled in the Googleplex campus, the headquarters of Google, is a collection of dessert-themed alien statues known as The Android Garden. The Android Garden is made up of 13 large plastic Android statues, each representing a different operating system.Each update to the operating system gets named after a different dessert, in alphabetical order starting with Cake, then Donut, continuing on until the most recent, Nougat, hence the dessert-themed statues. While they were once located outside of building 44, they now reside outside of the Google Welcome Center.
The Googleplex is the corporate headquarters complex of Google inc., and the massive physical building serves as a manifestation of the growth of the company from its humble origins at Stanford University in 1996 to the present. Google's rise is also a symbol of the rise of the internet as a form of communication between computers and the humans that design and use them. Google in its 2012 year-end annual report said it had 3.5 million square feet of office space in Mountain View. However, a 1.1 million square-foot Bay View addition, which overlooks San Francisco Bay, began in 2013.
The Computer History Museum is a non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation of the artifacts and history pertaining to the Information Age. For four decades, the Computer History museum has been one of the leading institutions in the US to preserve and share the history of computers. The museum offers a variety of tours and programs, as well as the largest international collection of computing artifacts.
NASA's Ames Research Center is a leading research facility that plays an important role in many of NASA's missions. The facility is home to over $3 billion in equipment, and has been in operation since the 1940s (and part of NASA since its establishment in 1958). The center is named in honor of Joseph Sweetman Ames, a founding member of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), one of several federal agencies that were precursors to NASA. Ames conducted wind-tunnel research, helped NACA license technological innovations to businesses to spur the economy, and chaired the Foreign Service Committee of the National Research Council.
Walker's Wagon Wheel was a bar in Mountain View. Named after an old wagon wheel that was displayed in the bar, Walker's was a place where engineers came to mingle, unwind, and share information. Even the fiercest rivals came together at Walker's, a sort of neutral territory where ideas could be discussed freely in a cooperative environment. Ideas were shared and employees recruited here, fueling Silicon Valley's rapid rise as a leader in tech. The tavern was demolished in 2003.
The Intel Museum is displays the history of the Intel company and semiconductor history, and is located in the Intel Headquarters. The museum was created in 1980, but was not opened to the public until 1992.
The Tech Museum of Innovation features 132,000 square feet of interactive galleries and workshops that reflect 'the Spirit of Silicon Valley" and blend fun with education in science and technology. Guests can tour the galleries, participate in workshops, and enjoy educational films in the museum's IMAX theater. The Museum sponsors a number of day-long and multi-day workshops were young adults can explore technology and design their own inventions and innovations.
Completed between 1992 and 1993, the former corporate headquarters for Apple Inc. consisted of six main buildings within a 32-acre complex east of De Anza Boulevard at Infinite Loop. Apple acquired the property from Four Phase Systems in the early 1990s, a period when leading technology and communications firms began to move from leased space in downtown buildings in order to build a corporate complex designed to reflect the ethos of a university campus. A sprawling second campus, originally called Apple Campus 2, was established further east along I-280 in Cupertino. Now known as Apple Park, the highlight of the new campus is a massive, circular, four-story new headquarters building that was occupied in April 2017. The new headquarters is not open to the public, but the adjacent Apple Park Visitors Center opened in November 2017. The Apple Infinite Loop Campus holds Apple offices and laboratories; the Apple store here closed in January 2024.
During the early 1970s, this suburban home was owned by Paul and Clara Jobs, the foster parents of future Apple Computers executive Steve Jobs. The garage and bedroom served as the place where Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne experimented with computer boards and discussed the potential of the computer as for personal use. In this home, the three young men created the Apple I computer and also incorporated the Apple Computer company. The house was designated as a historic site in 2016.
The Los Altos History Museum opened in 2001 with the express purpose of preserving and sharing the local history of the area with all who pass through its doors. Located within one of the few operating apricot orchards in the Santa Clara Valley, the museum’s 8,200 square feet are used to display both permanent and rotating, interactive exhibits. Admission to the museum is free and both self-guided and docent led tours are available during operating hours
Buck's of Woodside has been coined the "Cheers" of Silicon Valley. It's known for its eccentric decor and quirky personality. Model airplanes are suspended from the ceiling, and a Statue of Liberty wearing a sombrero and Mona Lisa tie holds an ice cream cone aloft. But make no mistake: this restaurant's walls have heard the conversations of some of Silicon Valley's premier company leaders and entrepreneurs, such as Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning of Tesla Motors. In the words of Buck's owner Jamis MacNiven, "We're just a local joint...It's like Facebook with real faces."
This Tour is a Thematic Tour or Heritage Trail.
Get a QR Code for this tour
This tour includes stops at museums, historic markers, and landmarks related to the history of Silicon Valley. Highlights include the famed garages where Apple Computers and Hewlett-Packard began, the Tech Museum of Innovation, and the Google campus. The tour concludes at a restaurant and bar known as the "Cheers" of Silicon Valley.
