William Shockley co-invented the transistor, won the Nobel Prize, and then drove away every talented person who worked for him — eight of whom left to found Fairchild Semiconductor, which spawned Intel and the entire Silicon Valley ecosystem. He spent his later years promoting eugenics and racial theories that destroyed his scientific reputation. The man who made the digital age possible also demonstrated that genius without decency is a weapon turned on everyone nearby.

This episode traces Shockley from his Palo Alto childhood through Bell Labs, the transistor, the Nobel Prize, the “Traitorous Eight” who fled his management, and the eugenics crusade that stained his legacy.

• Shockley’s role in the transistor invention and the credit disputes with Bardeen and Brattain
• Shockley Semiconductor and the management style so toxic it drove away his best employees
• The “Traitorous Eight” — the defection that created Fairchild, Intel, and Silicon Valley
• The eugenics advocacy, the racial theories, and the self-destruction of a Nobel laureate’s reputation