ABSTRACT
Once an America mired in De pression asked, “Brother, can you spare a dime?” Now, over seventy years later, the cry is “Brother, can you share a sil icon chip?” In the same Cal ifornia where the 1849 gold rush began, an other one of far greater pro portions is tak ing place in Silicon Valley. Now the “workers” go not into streams or caves, but to new buildings filled with elec tronic wiz ardry to “pan for gold” or, in their term, “push for high-tech.” Lead ing the pack is Bill Gates, our new J. P. Morgan, the multibillionaire who pre sides over Microsoft where most of the orig inal em ployees (so the story goes) are now mil - lion aires.
