You may (or may not :-) find it surprising that there is a vibrant ecosystem of research and development on both defensive and offensive systems on going to thi

You may (or may not :-) find it surprising that there is a vibrant ecosystem of research and development on both defensive and offensive systems on going to this day. The IEEE used to give a talk about "Black Silicon Valley" which was not about people of color and their contributions (although that would be an awesome talk too) but about the origins of the technology focus in Silicon Valley with regard to radio and RADAR development starting in WW2 and continuing on to this day. When I first moved to Sunnyvale my neighbor worked at Lockheed and all he could tell me was that he worked with electricity :-). He said he hoped that some of the stuff he had worked on was disclosed in the future so that he could tell is kids and/or grand kids about it. Having gone to school in LA where, at the time, ALL of the EE jobs were in the Defense sector, I specifically moved up to the Bay Area to work on cool stuff I could actually talk about with others[1]. One thing of note is that ageism is MUCH less of an issue in jobs that require security clearances. So a number of engineers who are suddenly perceived as "too old" to contribute to the latest hot startup find themselves recruited by the Raytheons and General Dynamics type companies that recognize their skills are valuable. [1] As an new college grad [NCG] I was not yet aware of the myriad ways in which employers would use non-disclosure agreements to thwart such conversations.