I spent 4 years at Fairchild in the bipolar memory division in Mountain View, 15 years as a professor at Portland State, and 15 years working at LANL. On the p

I spent 4 years at Fairchild in the bipolar memory division in Mountain View, 15 years as a professor at Portland State, and 15 years working at LANL. On the plus side: At Fairchild I worked with a technology that made the fastest circuits at the time. I designed some great circuits and new technologies. At Portland State I had some great students, and at LANL I had great colleagues. On the minus side: At Fairchild status = number of subordinates. I had tenure at PSU, but the institution didn't have a use for me. At LANL success = spending money. I ended up supporting code for the nuclear weapons program. The software infrastructure and software practices were out of date. We were not allowed to update things because that would threaten security. The quality of much of the code was appalling, as was the quality of the science and mathematics behind it.