She built a microcomputer empire from her suburban home: The untold story of Lore Harp McGovern
If history is written by the victors, Lore Harp McGovern should have volumes devoted to her contributions to the personal computing industry.
In the mid-1970s, from her suburban California home, Harp McGovern—a housewife and mother of two—began assembling memory boards and other computer expansions to sell to the growing hobbyist and business markets. With her friend Carole Ely, she grew their company, Vector Graphic, into a major manufacturer of microcomputers, eventually taking it public before Big Blue—IBM—muscled into the market. Gareth Edwards for Every tells the untold story of one of the last remaining original founders of Silicon Valley.
This is the story of Lore Harp McGovern, founder of Vector Graphic. With her friend Carole Ely, she launched a multi-million-dollar computer company from her suburban home and became one of the most important founders of the microcomputer age.
It is based on contemporary accounts in publications such as the Harvard Business Review, Interface Age, Kilobaud, Time, and the Los Angeles Times, as well as books such as Women, Technology and Power by Marguerite Zientara; Future Rich by Jacqueline Thompson; and The Untold Story of the Computer Revolution by G.H. Stine. It is also based on the words of Lore Harp McGovern herself.
Vector had a higher-than-average number of female employees. In interviews, magazines would ask if Harp’s approach was intended as some kind of feminist experiment. Alternatively, they would ask if it was evidence that female CEOs managed more emotionally than strategically—often with the implicit accusation that the company benefits were a sign of weakness. Harp’s answer was always the same: These benefits and policies were in place because they made economic sense.
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