Mountain View was integral to the early history and growth of Silicon Valley and is the location of many high technology companies. In 1956, William Shockley established Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory in Mountain View, the silicon semiconductor device in Silicon Valley. Today, Mountain View houses the headquarters of many of the world’s largest technology companies, including Google and Alphabet Inc., Mozilla Foundation, Unicode Consortium, Intuit, NASA Ames research center, and significant headquarter offices for Microsoft, Symantec, 23andMe, LinkedIn, Samsung, and Synopsys.