Jack Kilby Quotations

There was a space program before there was integrated circuits.

I think I thought it would be important for electronics as we knew it then, but that was a much simpler business and electronics was mostly radio and television and the first computers.

It was really a very small company when I started and it changed very rapidly during those first periods.

Space was of interest, but a major driving factor was the interest in the military, which had much broader, more diverse needs, more urgency with it.

The first calculators tended to sell for $400 or $500. Today, you can get a pretty good one for 4 or $5.

I'm doing a little consulting. I'm somewhat retired, still a director of a company or two.

I think the varied backgrounds in the beginning were a plus. It took a while for people to understand what they were trying to do and get started, but it did provide for a lot of new ideas.

I'm sure there will continue to be exciting new products and major changes, but it looks as if the existing technology has a great deal of room to grow and prosper.

Well, the thought that everybody might have a personal computer at their desk or their home was certainly not on the mainstream of anybody's activity at that time.

Well, the big products in electronics in the '50s were radio and television. The first big computers were just beginning to come in and represented the most logical market for us to work in.