[ckissick]

Loved that show. I does indeed make you think. In fact, while driving past Stanford University recently, I realized that Silicon Valley wouldn't exist if not for typhoid fever. Leland founded the university in 1891 in honor of his son, Leland Junior, who died of typhoid fever at the age of 15. He was their only child. Leland Senior said "the children of California shall be our children."

The first high tech companies in the area, such as HP and Varian, were founded by Stanford grads with the encouragement of Fred Terman, a professor at Stanford. I immediately thought of James Burke. He could have made an episode on this.