Archive for February, 2012

Is God a Superhero

February 26, 2012

Karen Santorum, Rick Santorum’s Wife, Says “Campaign Is ‘God’s Will”

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I understand that some people believe in God or some other spiritual  force.  My relationship with God would be best described as “its complicated”.  There is a lot we do not understand about the Universe and our own existence, such as “How did the Universe get created?”, “Why is the Universe so finally tuned that life can exists?”, “How did life begin?”, “Why are we conscious and what does it meant to be conscious?” , “What is time and does it really exist?” Trying to answer such questions takes scientists to some strange places like String Theory (multiple-dimensions) and the Multiverse (infinite numbers of Universes which means that we exist an infinite number of times).  We still do not know how life was established and are not even sure what consciousness means.  If science has a religion, it is belief that someday we will be able to answer all these questions.  I personally am not sure.  We will have to survive long enough to answer these questions and even then we may not be capable of understanding the answers.

I have spent my life studying physics.  When I was a child of seven, I started listening to science programs on the radio.  There was one show that dealt with physics.  Einstein was my hero. I had trouble tying my shoe laces and my mother told me that Einstein could not do that either so began my life long identification  with him.  My other hero was Superman.  I thought that someday I would be able to jump into a phone booth and emerge as a superhero myself.  I had very acute childhood asthma and spent most of my 7th year in a convalescent home in Palo Alto, CA (now the location of the Ronald McDonald Home).  I had a lot of time on my hands to ponder the mysteries of the universe. One things I wondered about was the ratio of positive energy to negative energy.  I only knew of protons, electrons and neutrons then.  I wish I had known about anti-matter and dark energy – it certainly would have keep my mind even busier.

Over the years, I have explored Jewish mystic teachings, the Kabbalah, before Madonna made it fashionable.  I  continue to study physics and have become a student of evolution as well as  exploring my own views about time and space. I think of human beings like the cells in my body – they are alive in their own right but totally dependent on the other cells.  While my cells may not be aware, they are the foundation of my awareness.  What ever I am, I am probably dependent on them for my awareness and existence.  So we humans may be like these cells in making up  something much greater and much more aware, the Universe (or Multiverse).  But just like a single cell in my body has little impact on the body as a whole, we humans individually have little impact on the Universe as a whole.  And just like I have limited ability to effect the behavior of a single specific cell in my body, the Universe might have limited ability to impact us individually.  So I struggle with the concept of Rick Santorum’s God.  He (I am pretty sure that Santorums God is a “he”) seems more like Superman than an all powerful force. So while he can run faster than a speeding bullet, is more powerful than a locomotive, and is  able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, he cannot guarantee the election for Rick.
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I am hoping that one of you can help me understand this better.  If God wanted Rick Santorum to be president, then why would God not make him President?  Why does Rick Santorum have to campaign? If God, does not want us to use birth control, why does it exist?  And what is God doing all day and night?  Oh, by the way, how did he get to be God?  Normally, I would not think much about this kind of God but this year, God has joined the campaign.  According to Rich Santorum’s wife Karen, the Campaign is “God’s will.” I would think that if God were on your side, you would not need a PAC and a billionaire  (Foster Freiss), who believes that putting aspirin between he knees of a woman is effective birth control.  But then again, I guess God works in mysterious ways. I just wish he had put some aspirin between the knees of Rich Santorum’s mother.

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Posted in Government, Political Views, Religion | 3 Comments »

Tales from Rotterdam or how I met a Princess and killed the Computer Division of Philips

February 24, 2012

How I killed Europe’s Largest Computer Company
In 1973 I took a train to Appledorn,the Netherlands.   The CEO of Philips asked me to give him my opinion about the viability of his company’s Computer Division.  Philips at that time was one of the leading electronic companies in the world and extremely important in Holland where I lived. When I got off the train, I found a limo and driver waiting for me. I was skinny 28  years old and looked more like a hippie than a scientist. I was taken to the Computer Divisions facility.   Leaving the limo, I walked into a very large lobby.  Besides the receptionist, there was only one man standing there.  He turned out to be  the head of the division.  I walked in the door and he looked passed me. I had long black curly hair and bushy full  beard.  I am not sure what I was wearing but it certainly was not a suit and tie like this man.

So I said, ‘are you looking for  me?  I am Avram Miller”.   He said “The Avram Miller”.  I thought that was pretty funny but did not laugh.  It seems that the CEO of Philips had sent a handwritten letter to the Director of the Division telling him to make arrangements for my visit and instructing him to provide me with any information I requested.  The note said that I was the CEO’s personal advisor and would be reporting directly back to him about my views regarding the future of division.

I spent the day meeting with different department heads and their staffs. It was a different time for computers. IBM was still king as were mainframes.  Sperry, Burroughs, Univac were still successful companies. HP and Digital Equipment were just beginning to ascend as mini computers became more popular.  Personal computers as we know them did not exist.   I can’t really remember much about what I learned that day  but I knew that this part of Philips was not going to be successful.  The technology was mediocre and there was  a lack of energy in the place. The best way to describe the Division was to say it was “middle aged”.

The next day, I called the CEO of Philips and said in a nice way “you can’t be serious”.  I told him that I could not see how the Computer  Division could be successful and I recommended that they get out of the business.  He thanked me and told me he had come to that conclusion himself but he wanted an outside opinion and I was really “outside” because not only was I not a Philips employee,  but I was not Dutch either  (even thought I did speak Dutch). The company did not actually close the division but reduced  its  investment significantly over the next several years.

Oh, I forgot to explain how it was that the CEO of one of the world larges companies came to ask a 28 year old former hippie for advice on one of his major businesses.  Readers of this blog will know (but may not remember) that I went to Rotterdam in 1969 to lead the computer activities of a new Medical Institution focused on Cardiovascular Medicine called the Thoraxcenter.  In addition to the government money behind this new facility (which cost 50 million dollars  back in 1969) there were some contributions from Industry. The largest contributor was Philips.  That activity was connected to their research lab (Natlab) under the leadership of  Henrick Casimir, a truly great physicist and a wonderful man.  He was one of the people that was involved in recruiting me to come to Holland to join the Thoraxcenter (I came in 1969 having just turn 24 years old).  One day the top management  of Philips came to visit us.  I remember that the Director of  the Thoraxcenter, Prof. Paul Hugenholtz , and a  few others on his staff including me, went to the small Rotterdam Airport to welcome the CEO, Dr. Casimir and some other Philips notables.  We had a “site visit” where  I gave a presentation about our computer activities.  The next day I got a call from the CEO asking me to do him a favor and visit the Computer Division. I guess I made a good impression.

Meeting the current Queen of the Netherlands.
Around the same time, it was decided  Princess Beatrix would visit the Thoraxcenter along with her husband Claus.  Claus was actually a German.  When they married just twenty years after the war there were a lot of negative feelings about him in Holland.  Later, he actually became very popular.   Anyway, we were to get a royal visit in which we would discuss the work of the Thoraxcenter.  I was to present the computer systems that we had developed.  A protocol  officer of the Court contacted  us to instruct us how to behave during the visit.  One of the things he did was to specify the kind of clothes we were to wear.  I remember that we  had a choice between wearing a gray suit or a blue suit with the appropriate tie.  The only suit I actually owned was purple.  I told the officer that I was trying to decided if I should wear a purple suite  for Royalty or a Orange suit since the royal family was from the House of Orange.   They almost died!  I said,” ok, if I have to wear a blue or gray suit, I am not coming.”  Not sure what happened next  but they must have made an exception since I ended up meeting  Beatrix, now Queen of the Netherlands and  her husband, Claus.  We were at a rather informal (I use that phrase lightly) reception.  In the room, there were only two men that were not wearing blue or gray suits.  Prince Claus was wearing brown and I was in my purple suit.   I liked him and we kind of hit it off.   Sadly, he died in 2002.  Beatrix  seemed nice but I did not really spend much time with her.  By the way, Beatrix’s mother, Queen Juliana signed off on my appointment to the Academic Staff of Erasmus University, Rotterdam.

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Life Blues: My reaction to Outlaw Blues by Jonathan Taplin

February 20, 2012

“Outlaw Blues is a story of the American counter-culture — the artists who created an American Avant-garde that pushed the culture forward into what we now call modernity. Though much of the book is centered on a group of musicians and filmmakers that Taplin worked with from 1965-1995, it is also the story of the roots of that era. The book examines rebel artists of America’s past — H.D. Thoreau, Mark Twain, Louis Armstrong, Orson Welles, Billie Holiday, Allen Ginsberg — the “mad ones” who made us who we are as a culture”.  From the book launch at the Annenberg Innovation Lab, Oct. 11, 2011

Just finished reading the Outlaw Blues by Jonathan TapIin. I recently reconnected with Jonathan, an amazing man and the director of the Anneberg Innovation Lab at USC.  We probably had not seen each other for over tweleve years. We found each other on Facebook.  Since I am now living in LA part of the year, I reached out to him and he invited me to meet him at his lab. I also found out that he had written a book called, Outlaw-Blues last year.  The book had a powerful effect on me which I will explain later. It is an experimental e-book that I bought on iTunes and read on my iPad.  Actually, I expected more from the “experimental” part than just short embedded videos even thought they were very effective. Outlaw Blues is the name of a Bob Dylan’s song and also a movie staring Peter Fonda.

This post is not a book review but I will say a few things about the book.  First of all, I strongly recommend it to anyone that is interested in the history of popular music and in particular, Bob Dylan, the Beatles, and the Rolling Stones and/or the history of independent  film makers like  Martin Scorsese  (Taplin produced his first film, Mean Streets).  Or if you are interested in people like Jonathan that have found their own unconventional way  through life and has impacted the development of today’s media industry. The book is a combination Jonathan’s recollections and experience  from the mid 60s to the end of the 90s.  Intersperse are stories of key figures that had profound effects on the evolution of media and culture.

I first meet Jonathan in 1997 or 1998, I think.  In 1996, Intel and Creative Artist Agency created a lab to educate talent about the coming possibilities of broadband residential Internet and personal computers to create a new medium.  I  drove this project from the Intel side after meeting with Michael Ovtiz who was the founder and principle owner of CAA.  I knew that we were creating a new medium that would effect every aspect of our lives from commerce and education to communications and entertainment.  In my position as Vice President of Business Development,  and my additional  role as “Czar” of Intel’s broadband development activities and a leading investor in early stage companies dealing with the consumer market. I wanted to accelerate the development of these “applications”.  I was particularly concerned with how entertainment content would finds its way to this new world.  I was pretty sure that the folks in Silcon Valley would not be able to create compelling and entertaining content with the exception of computer games.  So I thought, lets get the people that make todays entertainment excited about the opportunity.  We set up the lab  within CAA with state of the art computing technology. CAA’s clients and others would come by the lab for demonstrations.  They key person on my side was Sriram Viswanathan.  In addition, we decided to invest in early stage companies dealing with entertainment and to do this together with CAA.  This activity was lead by Matthew Cowan from the Intel side and Hassan Miah from the CCA side.    We had some hits like Launch Media which was founded by Dave Goldberg. Launch was selling enhanced  CD’s.  I required that they move to the Internet as part of our investment.    Launch was eventually sold to Yahoo where Dave ran the Yahoo music business.  Lucky for him, he meet Sheryl Sandberg, the COO of Facebook , soon to be one of the richest women in the world….and a lovely person by the  way.  We also invested in Mark Cuban’s  Broadcast.com which went public and then was bought by Yahoo for more than five billion dollars. Of course they were not all successful and we invested in some duds like American Cybercast.

During this period we learned of Intertainer, founded by Jonathan Taplin.  While I was aware that Jonathan had a background as a movie producer, I did not know anything about his extensive history in the music industry.  Intertainer  was one of the first companies to make deals with the movie industry and provide download-able movies.  Remember this was 1997/98. There were not that many consumers that had broadband in their homes. Intertainer did very well until the movie industry, lead by Sony, created an alternative called Movielink.  The result was that  studios cut off access to movies by Intertainer; bringing that company to its knees.  Intertainer sued a number of companies for Anti-Trust Violations in 2002.  In 2006, the suits were settled out of court.

As I began to read the book, I was shocked to learn that Jonathan and I had a lot of overlap in our early days.  Jonathan, at 65 is two years younger than I am.  He grew up, went to school and lived  on the East Coast during the 60s.  If he had been living in San Francisco, we would have surely known each other.  Jonathan became Bob Dylan’s road manager.  In the early 60s, I was surrounded by the San Francisco music scene but in a very peripheral way. Bob Dylan showed up sometimes at the Blue Unicorn where I hung out.   I met Janis Joplin  while she was rehearsing with the Big Brother and Holding Company (she was not a very nice person I thought but when she sang it would bring tears to my eyes).   I hung out at the home of the Jefferson Airplane and went to a few parties at Gerry Garcia’s home.  But I was not into rock. I had studied classical music, composition and arranging.  I preferred Jazz (and life long addition) and so I spent my time listening to Jazz players when they came to San Francisco.   My engagement with first the “beatniks” and later the “hippies” was more extensive.  I would listen to Allen Gingsburg read poetry in North Beach even though I was just a kid.  I spent lots of time at the  City Lights Book Store.   Later, I became  friendly with Allen and was invited to his apartment a few times.  Outlaw Blues deals a lot with these people. I was also drawn to Jewish Mysticism and was for a while a follower of Shlomo Carelbach and very politically active in the anti war and civil rights movements.

In reading Outlaw Blues, I realized how easily my life could have gone in a different direction.  Maybe, if I liked the music better, I would have become part of the rock music scene. My management and leadership skills might have taken me on a path similar to Jonathan and eventually my creative side might have emerged as it did for him.  I had a similar experience reading Holy Beggars by  Aryae Coopersmith  whom I recently met.  In reading Aryae’s book, I realized that I could have easily continued to explore the spiritual side of myself and may have ended up in Israel as a Rabbi. But I fell in love with technology. By 1966, I was working at the Langley Porter Institute, UCSF Medical School, designing equipment for brainwave bio feedback.  From that point on, I had a continuing connection to technology.  Now I am back to studying music.  Jonathan is a Professor at USC.

At this point in my life, it is interesting to speculate on  the different paths I could have taken.  Life is so strange and random… or is it?

Some relevant links:
Outlaw Blues, the song  
Outlaw Blues, the film 

WSJ  on the book  
Jonathan Taplin 
Allen Ginsberg
Michael Ovitz   
Dave Goldberg

Mark Cuban
Broadcast.com 
Intel/CAA Media Lab
Holly Beggars   

Shlomo Carlebach 

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Hong Kong and Me: How I became the highest compensated advisor in the world (for a little while)

February 8, 2012

Hong Kong 1963-Courtesy of Tim Brown

Here I am in Hong Kong some 49 years after I first arrived here.  I wrote about that experience recently here.   In looking for photos to use with this post, I found  some that were taken in 1963 by a family that actually traveled on the President Cleveland,the ship on which I worked.  I was able to make contact with Tim Brown who published the photos.  He was eleven years old when he sailed on that ship at the same time I served on it.

President Cleveland in Hong Kong 1963-Courtsey of Time Brown

The next time I came to Hong Kong was about 30 years later, 1992.    I was working for Intel at the time.  Of course by 1992, a lot had changed.  I remember there was still an electronics industry in Hong Kong then.  And it was still a place to buy cheap goods. But in the late 90s, my relationship with Hong Kong changed dramatically.  As readers of this blog will know, my major activity (and  professional accomplishment) was driving the development of residential broadband utilizing my position as   Vice President of Business Development for Intel Corp.  This was accomplished in the US and in many other  parts of the world  by working with the cable industry to utilize their infrastructure  to provide two way high speed communications to homes.  At the same time, we worked with phone companies through out the world to use their infrastructure  to provide broadband (DSL).  While the combination of cable and telephone infrastructure reached much of the developed world, it could not reach most of the developing world.  That is when I became interested in Satellite communications.  An example of this is a joint venture which I put together between Intel and SES Astra  (Europe’s largest Satellite Operator) to provide broadband to be delivered to PC’s via Satellite.

Avram signs his deal with Richard Li

Sometime in late 1996 I was asked by my friend, the late John Evans,   to meet Richard Li, the son of Li Ka-Shing, one of the riches and most powerful men in the world.   When I meet Richard he was about 30 years old and already a billionaire in his own right having created Star TV in 1990 and selling it to  Rupert Murdoch in 1993.  Richard had a strong interest in technology although he did not really  know much about it.  It turned out that he was considering  acquiring a startup called WebTV and wanted my advice.  WebTV was founded by Steve Perlman, a serial entrepreneur that I have known for about 20 years. It made sense in a way for Richard but at that time, I was convinced it would not succeed in the market.  It was too early for Interactive TV and it still has not really happen.  Soon after, and lucky for Steve, WebTV was bought by Microsoft for about 400 million dollars.  Steve is now the founder and CEO of OnLive.

A few months after that, I was contacted by Michael Johnson and George Chan both of whom played key roles  in the creation and operation of StarTV.   Michael was the “idea guy” and George was the “get it done guy”.  Both still worked for Richard Li  and they were figuring out what their next moves might be after Richard’s non-compete lapsed.  One idea was to bring the Internet to China.  This was the mid 90s and there was very little Internet penetration in China.  Strange to think that less then 20 years later, there would be more Internet users in china than any other country in the world.    Michael wanted to take advantage of the cable TV systems that were installed  in cities  throughout China.  The idea was to use satieties to download content into servers that would be located in these cities.  The cable TV structure would be used to  connect homes to the server.  The device at home would be similar to WebTV. The company providing do the service would  do the actual programing. The cable operator would get paid for the use of their infrastructure.   It was kind of a hybrid of TV and interactivity.  We were going to support some amount of upstream (to the Satellite) bandwidth so that email could be sent an received.  I know it probably sounds like a dumb idea but please think about the mid 90s and China.  Richard’s company, Pacific Century CyberWorks and Intel formed a joint venture called  Pacific Convergence Group (PCC).   We set up a development organization in California.  Michael Johnson came over to lead the effort.

Avram and Michael Johnson

About a year later, I resigned from Intel (April 1999) to start up The Avram Miller Company which was pretty much a way to brand me.  That name had come to me after attending the Allen& Co Sun Valley Conference for seven years.  There was always a list of the companies present. One of those  companies was The Walt Disney Company.  Herb Allen kindly invited me to attend the conference in July 1999 even though I was no longer with Intel.  I loved the listing of companies.  The Avram Miller Company was right above The Walt Disney Company.

Just before I left Intel, I told my plans to leave to  a select number of CEO’s in the companies I was working closely with.  I had lead Intel’s investment in CMGI in December 1997 and was a board observer.  When I informed the then CEO of CMGI, Dave Wetherell that I was leaving Intel, he asked me to join his board as an independent  director which I did.  When I told Richard I was leaving Intel, I mentioned I would be joining the CMGI board.   He then asked me to join his board as well.  Frankly, I was not too keen on joining his board.  While I had developed a close relationship with Dave Wetherell, I did not feel very close to Richard and was concerned that I would not have a lot of impact. This turned out to be correct.   But I was also intrigued with the idea of have my own global reach. Richard asked me what it would take financially to get me to join.  I was pretty “hot” in those days.   So I was asking for a lot.  So I said, I wanted 0.5% of the company in options and 500k dollars.  And that is what we agreed to.  I actually asked for the cash because I had no idea how things worked on the Hong Kong stock exchange and was not sure if I would actually ever be able to get my options.

So this is what happens  next:   Richard, acquired this public company and renames it as the Pacific Century Cyberworks (PCCW).  Intel invest $50 million into PCCW and eventually folds PCC into that company as well. Intel then folds in the joint venture.  I am not yet on the board.  I am advising Richard and we do a number of things including setting up a venture capital group within PCCW. I introduce Dave Wetherell to Richard Li and they decided to have each company invest in the other and enter into a number of strategic relationships.  By that time, I  also joined the board of World Online (based in the Netherlands) , which was one of Europe’s leading Internet Service Providers.  I liked having the Asian, European and USA reach.  It was a critical part of the strategy for my own company.

For a number of reasons, my appointment to the board was delayed.  One of the key reasons is that the Hong Kong Stock Exchange requires that my compensation be appraised by an independent  company to determine if it is was fair and reasonable.  In the meantime,  PCCW stock is going crazy.  The strike price for my options where set at about $2.40 (Hong Kong Dollar).  But the company is ridding the Internet bubble of the 1999.  Soon, the stock is trading up in the 20s.  I believe that at one time PCCW might have been the most valuable Internet stock in the world.

PCCW stock chart during the time I was involved

My stock options were valued at 90 million dollars.  One of the major HR companies did the Appraisal and sure enough, they agreed that it was fair and reasonable compensation.  I wish I could find their report.  Of course, by the time all this work was done and my option package  was finally approved at a stock holders meeting, the bubble burst and my options were underwater. I never realized a dime from them.

I continued on the board for a number of years.  A long the way, PCCW acquired the phone company of Hong Kong  (Cable and Wireless HKT) for 28 billion dollars. The Company was able to buy that asset with Internet Dollars.  So there I was 36 years after sailing into Hong Kong as an 18 year merchant seaman, serving as a board member the Hong Kong Phone company, meeting with the top officials of Hong Kong including the Chief Executive.

PCCW continues to function and is the leading provider of broadband in Hong Kong.  Richard Li is still chairman of PCCW.  He tried to take it private recently but was prevented by Hong Kong Stock Exchange.  George Chan is he managing director.  Michael Johnson left PCCW many years ago and lives in South Africa. As for me, well those days are over.  And I am stopping in Hong Kong my wife Deborah on our way back from Thailand.  I can still afford a limo from the Airport and an amazing hotel room with a beautiful view of an amazing city that has played such an interesting role in my life.

www.upperhouse.com

View from Upper House Hotel Room

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