On September 18, 1957, eight young scientists and engineers resigned together from Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory. Among them were Robert Noyce, Gordon Moore and Eugene Kleiner. With money from Sherman Fairchild’s Fairchild Camera and Instrument, they formed Fairchild Semiconductor. They wanted to build transistors “the way they wanted to, not the way Shockley decreed.” They became known as the “traitorous eight.” Nobody knows who first used the name.
Fairchild in turn led to dozens of new companies, called the “Fairchildren.” In 1968 Noyce and Moore left Fairchild to found Intel. In 1972 Kleiner co-founded the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins.