Cassidy: Silicon Valley startup culture owes a nod to National Semiconductor

Nothing lasts forever, but 50 years for a Silicon Valley tech company is pretty close.

National Semiconductor, dead and gone, was a member of the 50-year club when its light was extinguished. Some of its biggest fans got together for a party last week, the first holiday gathering of National alumni since the company was consumed by Texas Instruments in a $6.5 billion deal that closed in September, according to a report in MercuryNews.com.

"It's got a rich history in the valley," says Brian Halla, National's CEO from 1996 to 2009. "You can go anywhere in the valley and somebody will come up and say, 'I used to work at National.' "

Halla spoke over a cacophony of conversation that made it sound as if every one of those somebodys had crowded into the party. But maybe that's because it was held at Vito's Famous Pizza, a cozy joint tucked into an industrial area not far from National's campus. The simple venue was no accident. It was a throwback to National's startup culture, a beer-and-peanuts place where in the early days it seemed engineers could be found either at work or at Marchetti's, Walker's Wagon Wheel or some other watering hole where juices -- creative and alcoholic -- flowed freely.  >>More here

SOURCE:  mercurynews.com