Was silicon valley really originally about changing the world? It is my understanding that the customers for integrated circuits during the 70s and earlier wer

Was silicon valley really originally about changing the world? It is my understanding that the customers for integrated circuits during the 70s and earlier were primarily the military and large corporations. While delvoping technology for those sort of companies may be more "real", it hardly seems like that sort of work would be any less profit-driven. Also I would guess that the prominence of silly start-ups that are based on "game mechanics, addiction, self-reference, and narcissism" is made to appear larger because these sorts of companies need large numbers of people to be aware of them. Start-ups that create products that are not used by the general public probably will not seek publicity and thus you are less likely to read about them on tech crunch. I have interned at three start-ups over the last 4 years and none of them have ever been mentioned on Techcrunch, despite one of them being involved in some serious M&A action. But why would they be, since readers probably are not hugely interesting in moving silicon wafers around a fab and companies are unlikely to find customers for their protein analysis hardware. So before you lament that lack of "real" start-ups, consider the possibility that you just are not hearing about them.