The unusual form of this book leaves me indebted to three kinds of persons: members of my family who not only gave support but entrusted me, in a sense, with their lives; colleagues who shared insights as I wrote; and authors of works about the milieus I describe. “A communal memoir” is the phrase my fine editor, Bill Thomas, uses for what has resulted. Well, quite a community (one so large that to identify every member is impossible) deserves credit here.
I say thank you, profoundly, to my father and mother for their openness to this project. My father likes to joke, “I wish when you were born I had noticed the label warning: ‘Everything you say can and may be used against you.’ ” This book, however, would never have been attempted without the willing participation of Hal and Terry Beers, and never for a second have I taken for granted this gift from them. Thanks as well to my beloved sisters and brother, Marybeth MacLean, Maggie Beers, and Dan Beers. And an eternal thank you to Deirdre Kelly, my wife and best friend, whose intelligence and honesty and caressing wit have made this book (as with all things good in our lives) possible.
Richard Rodriguez encouraged me years ago, over many lunches, to think in terms of a memoir. That he who wrote so masterfully of his own formation decided to take an interest in mine remains an inspiration to me. I thank Molly Friedrich for her surehandedness as agent and advisor. I thank Bill Thomas for his perfect way with my variable psyche and prose. For giving me much of their time to help me make sense of the changing technological and social landscape, I owe these brilliant people: Gary Chapman of the 21st Century Project in Austin, Texas; Ann Markusen of the Project on Regional and Industrial Economics at Rutgers University; Lenny Siegel of the Pacific Studies Center in Mountain View, California; Peter Calthorpe of Calthorpe Associates, San Francisco, California. For supplying me invaluable help along the way, I am grateful to Kathryn Olney, James Glave, David Kirp, and Peter Neushul. For their companionship and unfailing interest in my sanity, I thank Bill Richardson and Wallace Robinson.
A heartfelt thank you also to the gracious and creative people at Doubleday, especially Marly Rusoff, Sandee Yuen, Janet Hill, Jennifer Daddio, and most especially Jacqueline LaPierre.
While it is too daunting to cite every article and book informing what I have written, I do wish to list these most useful road maps. (Any wrong turns I may have taken are my own responsibility, of course.) Barons of the Sky by Wayne Biddle, for aircraft industry history; Arming the Heavens by Jack Manno, for early aerospace and Wernher von Braun; … The Heavens and the Earth: A Political History of the Space Age by Walter A. McDougall, for strategies of Cold War leaders and spy satellite history; “The Genesis of Silicon Valley” by Annalee Saxenian and The New Book of California Tomorrow edited by John Hart, for the development of Santa Clara Valley; Crabgrass Frontier by Kenneth T. Jackson and Redesigning the American Dream by Dolores Hayden, for the form, function, and growth of suburbs; The Rise of the Gunbelt by Ann Markusen et al., for the impetus behind aerospace settlements; The New Alchemists by Dirk Hanson and Fire in the Valley by Paul Frieberger and Michael Swaine, for the history of Steve Wozniak and the personal computer revolution; Behind the Silicon Curtain by Dennis Hayes, for the culture of Silicon Valley’s boom.
Portions of this book have been published in different form in Harper’s, Mother Jones, and the magazine of the San Francisco Examiner. To protect privacy, the “Gianninis” and the “O’Mearas” of Chapter 5 are pseudonyms.