The USA: A nice place to live but I would not want to invest my money there.

July 29, 2011

A few days ago, I had my quarterly visit to JP Morgan to visit my money.   Like many of you, I am unemployed but in my case it is by choice although I shudder to think about what would happen if I wanted to get a real job at the age of 66 . This means that I live from the earning of my investments.  I am very fortunate in having enough assets to support a very comfortable life style (so far) . Those that are still employed  are concerned about how the financial markets may impact their future such as their ability to pay for the children’s education or to eventually retire. For me the future is now since I do not have a way to make up for losses.   This means I have to think about the financial markets both tactically and strategically.  I thought I would share with you some of my conclusions with respect to the USA.

I believe the USA will continue to decline for the foreseeable future
The USA will no longer be the leader of the world.  This mantel will pass to china sometime in the  next ten years because they have a government that works.  For those that find this hard to imagine, you need to review they history of various powerful countries.  Start by reviewing the decline of the Great Britain which is not so great these days.  Great wars often lead to these declines.  In the case of Britain, WWII really did them in.  In our case,   we created wars that so that we could waste our treasure and blood.

Unemployment is systemic and will only get worse

The percentage of Americans that are part of the work force will continue to decline because of unemployment, aging population and stupid immigration policies.  Unemployment is systemic and will only get worse.  Employers are getting more out of employees because employees are afraid to loose their jobs.  Unions are weak and represent an ever declining portion of the work force.  Government will be forced to lay off works and the private sector will not employee these people.  There is a major skills miss match.  Technology is increasing output.  Outsourcing will continue and increase.  Most new jobs that will be created are low paying service jobs that cannot be outsource. The government reports on number of jobs but not changes in total income.  But government tax revenues are greatly effected by the actual income levels.  Right now 50% of workers pay no income tax (they do of course pay payroll taxes and may pay state taxes).  There is an enormous short fall between government spending and revenue.  If we borrow we are just creating problems for tomorrow.  If we do not borrow we are just creating problems for today.

The government of the USA is broken.
The system is broken creating two political parties that are more concerned about staying in power than doing what is right for the country.  If the the US Government was a  business, its stock would be tanking (they dollar is the stock) and if there was a wise board of directors,  the management would be replaced.  But we do not really have a board. We just have shareholders (citizens) and they do not really know how to get a new management team in place.  I can understand the rage of the Tea Party  although I do not agree with their solutions.  I wish those on the left would show some rage. I thought Obama might be leader like JFK but he turned out not to be up to the task.

US Corporations are doing well
Many are having record profits. This is a result of great productivity, cheap money and global expansion.  We have a stupid tax policy which  causes multinational  companies to move much of their growth off shore.  When every one talks about how much money an Apple, Microsoft, Intel have for instance (I speak of the tech companies because I understand their businesses better)  they fail to understand that much of that money was made outside of the USA and can not be brought  back here without paying very high tax.   So while I am happy to own large cap US companies, I do so knowing that much of their business is not in the USA (less than half).  Smaller domestic companies can also do well depending on what kind of business they have.  They can pay employees less and borrow at low interest rates.

Growth the last ten  years was an illusion.
Most growth was in contraction and finance industries.  This was all driven on debt.  The only way for contraction jobs to come back would be if we had a major program to rebuild our aging  infrastructure and a crash plan to reduce our dependency on oil. This will never happen in the political climate we now have.

The various debt reduction plans from both the democrats and the republicans are fantasies
They are based on the assumption that the economy is going to start growing again and this will mean increases in revenue. And instead of getting us out of Afghanistan which is were Bin Laden put us,  we want to cut education.

If this is all news to you, I am sorry that I had to be the one to tell you.

Posted in Government, World Situation | 4 Comments »

Stop the world, I want to get off.

July 22, 2011

Fifty years ago almost to this day, Anthony Newley’s production of “Stop the World I Want to Get Off” was performed in London.  A few months after that Yuri Gagarin as Soviet cosmonaut  was the first person to leave the earth behind.   A year later, John Glenn became the first American to orbit the earth. In June of 1969, the first human beings stepped onto the moon.  Yesterday, the last Nasa space shuttle was retired.  America not only has no way of going back to the moon but we can not even put an american in orbit unless we use the rockets of some other country.  While we use to race to the heavens we are now engaged in a race to the bottom.

I have been so frustrated and angry about our political situation in the USA.  I found myself saying “stop the world I want to get off” and then realized as an American, I am stuck her on earth.   We are watching one of the greatest declines of a leading country the world has ever seen.  Here is the sequence of events and why I am so pessimistic that there is a way to turn this around.

In the past most politicians wanted to serve their country.  They might  have different ideas of what was best for the country but they were driven primarily by ideals.  However the job of getting elected became more and more expensive.  They rationalized that if they did not stay in power, who ever would take their place would not do as good of job as they would so making compromises and selling out to special interests was ok if it meant saying in power.  Over time, this began to be their primary objective and doing good for the country was secondary.  However, they did need to accomplish somethings to get elected and this would mean some degree of compromise.  The results were not pretty but the country continued to function.  Now we have people in congress that do not care if they get reelected. We have come full circle except that these people are pretty much insane.  The result is that we use to have problems that got solved, then we had problems that did not get solved and now we are creating problems that can not be solved.

 

Enjoy this performance of some of the songs from the play by Sammy Davis Jr. It might put you in a better mood.  It did me.

Posted in Government, World Situation | Leave a Comment »

Here is my solution for the Israeli/Palestinian Conflict

May 24, 2011

I am so tried of the same circle.  Below you will find my views on how to get out to this mess.  The bottom line is Palestine should focus on its future especially it’s economic future.  Israel is in the best position to help Palestine.  Israel want peace but it wants security even more.  So there will never be an agreement unless Israel feels secure.  But I think Israel would be willing to pay a big price for this and it has the ability to pay this price.

Let me know what you think?

Palestine must reconnize Israel as a Jewish State.

  • There are more than 50 Muslim States.  So what is the issue with having one tiny Jewish State
  • Palestine can not include Gaza until Gaza is integrated with the West Bank Palestine which be definition means that Israel is recognized by Gaza as well.

Palestine will except serious changes in the 1967 border that not only recognize facts on the ground but improve Israel”s security and improve commerece in Palestine

Palestine may bring back all Palestinian refugees (these are people of Palestinian decent but have never leaved in Israel or Palestine) to live in Palestine

  • This does not mean going back to Israel. After the 1948 war Israel absorbed most of the Jews that lived in Arab countries and were forced out.

Palestine will allow a limited Israeli military  precence on the Jordan river to assure Israel that weapons and terrists are not being brought into Palestine.

  • Jordan could be come part of this force or many other countries.
  • The precense will end in an agreed upon number of years (lets say 10 years

Israel will close many settlements.

  • Religious Jews that want to stay in certain parts of Palestine will be allowed to by the Palestinians and  will be given citizenship in Palestine just as Arabs in Israel have Citizenship

Israel will commit to a “Marshal Plan” to turn Palestine into an extremely successful country.

  • This will included building out infrastructure such as roads, utilities etc.
  • Founding a major education program for children and adults
  • Setting up  Israeli owned business in Palestine
  • Employ Palestinian workers in Israel

I don’t have a good solution for Jerusalem.  I think some great minds have to work on this.

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Syria uses Facebook and Palestinians to deflect attention

May 17, 2011

This article and the news surrounding  the events it described has me very concerned.  For some reason, the vision of Palestinian  people (not terrorist) leaving their camps  to try to break down the border to Israel and take back what they believe is their land hit me hard. Most of these camps were started in 1948 some 63 years ago. Those born soon after the camps were established are now grandparents and they have never been to Palestine.  And many have never even held a job because they have not been allowed to integrate into the actual countries in which they were born.  The fact that these camps exists is a demonstration of the failure of all concerned parties.  It is certainly a failure of Arab counties to show compassion for their own people.  But is also a failure of Israel although I frankly do not know how Israel could have changed this situation other than just disappearing.  I can imagine how these poor people feel. They believe that their homeland was stolen by the Jews.  They do not really know that Jews have lived in Israel continuously.  They do not understand that many of the Jews that live in Israel once lived in Arab countries and were forced out.  They only see (and they do see because they can get Israeli television) a European country now located on what they believe is their own homeland.

It is ironic that the social network they used to organize their attack on the Israeli border, Facebook, was created by a Jew, Mark Zuckerberg.  In fact so many of the individuals that created FB were/are Jewish. In addition to Zuckerberg, Dustin Moskovitz and Eduardo Saverin, most of the early investors were Jewish including Peter Thiel and Mitch Kapor.      Many of the senior management of Facebook are Jewish including Sheryl Sandberg, the COO.  And at least half of the board is Jewish as far as I can tell.

Why am I sad?  I am sad that so many Palestinians suffer.  I am scared because tyrannical governments like Syria are now utilizing social networks and the power of the Internet not to improve the lives of their people and especially not to improve the lives of the Palestinian people, but to help organize attacks on Israel and to focus the world on Israeli behavior.   Unfortunately, 15 people were killed by Israeli defense forces when they tried to bridge the border with Syria.  Frankly, it was so unexpected that the situation many not have been handled well.  I am sure so many will be outraged by this. But where is the outrage when Syria kills 100s a day of their own people?  What about the mass grave just found?  What does the Arab League  have to say about this? I have to wonder what would have happened if 100s of Mexicans and rushed the border with Texas trying to enter that state and claiming it was their homeland.

Today, I read an op ed in the NYT by the chairman of the PLO, Mahmoud Abbas.  He is calling for the UN to recognize Palestine as a state.  I will not get into the validity of this approach here.  But in his op ed, he blames everything that happened in 1948 on the Jews.  There is not single mention of the attacks on the Jewish state by it Arab neighbors or the call by Palestinian leaders for the Palestinian people to leave their villages.  Things will never get better if we can not understand that bad things happened on both sides and forgive each other for actions that were taken some 63 years ago.

Palestinians may one day realize they have much more in common with the Israeli’s than they have with their Arab neighbors. And Israel, of course, should respect the desire of Palestinians to have their own country and help them achieve that.  Perhaps, Social Networks like Facebook can play a role in making that happen.

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The Idea Man by Paul Allen

April 24, 2011

Just read the Idea Man by Paul Allen.  I don’t usually review books and certainly not here on my blog.  And this post is not really a review as much as it is a commentary.

The first 50% of the book deals mostly with Paul’s experiences with Bill Gates including the formation of Microsoft and the first  seven years of it’s  existence until  Paul left Microsoft (although he stayed on the boad until 2000).  I am eight yeas older than Paul and ten year older than Bill but our computer careers started about the same time (the second half of the 60s),  so I can relate very much to many of the experiences that Paul discussed about that time. I enjoyed Paul reminiscing about his feelings when he saw a transistor for the first time or what it was like to use a ASR-33 teletype for programing.  So the early part of the book was like “home week” for me..

Paul’s description of his relationship with Bill Gates rang true as did his description of Bill himself.   I meet Bill the first time in 1981 when I was at Digital Equipment Corp.  Bill was 26 by then. IBM had brought out the IBM PC and Microsoft was marketing  MS DOS.  We interacted  a few time  over  the next several years. From about 1992 to the time I left Intel in 1999, I had much more contact with him.  I meet Paul Allen during the 90s.  I certainly had a lot less interaction  with him and he did not impress me. I use to call him the richest 80 thousand-dollar-a-year programer in the world.

The book is an attempt to demonstrate that Paul actually played an imporant role in creating Microsoft i.e. he was the “idea man” and Bill was the “implementor” and therefore he played an  important role in creating the computer industry.  I think this  is probably true from what I read but Paul tries to demonstrate that the relationship was balanced and he contributed as much to Microsoft as  Bill.  This I doubt. There could have been many Paul Allen’s but there is only one Bill Gates (thank god).

Then there is the part of his story that deals with his first diagnoise of Cancer ( Hodgkin’s lymphoma).  I could easily relate to that having my own bout with cancer (although at a much later stage of my life). Later, he discusses his second cancer ( non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma). Paul also suffers from heart problems and has a pacemaker.

There is a lot about his investments in the second part of the book.  I have to say that during the 90s Paul was considered “dumb money” by many in the venture business.  He describes his investments and I think is pretty open about what went well and what went badly but you can tell that while Paul had a pretty good insight into what would happen in the future,  his  judgment about timing was pretty bad.  Also, I don’t think he was a good judge of people. Most importantly, he was spread way to thin.  Paul does not explain why he made these investments.  He was/is extremely rich.  Did he do this for money or to influence  the future?   I thought he was very honest about his investment in Interval. I had a lot of dealings with Interval.  There was a lot of value in the concept but the implementation was problem.  Again, Paul was not on top of what was happening.

I skipped over his discussion of investing in sport teams.  I have no interest in sports.  He discusses his involvement in entertainment. I was glad to see that he now realizes that he was “taken”  by SKG Dreamworks although I am surprised that he actually made money on his investment.

There was a lot about his philanthropic efforts.  Again, you can see he is all over the map.  It is interesting to compare the Gates Foundation with the Allen Foundation.

There is little about his personal life as  an adult.  He mentions two girl friends in the book.  This link  has some speculations.  When I was active in “Hollywood” in the 90s, I heard some stories but who knows if they are true.   Then again, there are some interesting stories about Bill and show girls. I always thought of Paul as a pretty lonely guy.  I remember that once I was in Portofino, maybe around 1997,   with the woman in my life at that time.  Paul showed up in one of his Yacht’s -  the  Méduse.  He was by himself.  I thought about saying hello but was afriad he would ask us to join him on his Yacht.  Paul was rich but in my opinion not very interesting.  We walked the other way.

Then there is Paul the consumer. The way he spends money is distasteful.  He appears to live like I imagine Donald Trump would like to live.  And sadly, I think there are a lot of hangers-on.   I once stood next to Paul at an Allen Conference (Herb Allen who is not a relation to Paul)  and listen to Paul discuss Yacht building with a woman I did not know.  The woman asked if he had a Helicopter Port on his boat.  Paul looked at her as if she was from Mars and said ” where else could you put your Helicopter?”.  He then told her that his boat had two. I wanted to puke.

Paul clearly wrote this book to demonstrate that he was and is relevant.  He was of course, and after reading this book, I raised his salarly.  He is now the richest 100 thousand-dollar-a-year programer in the world.

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Time for a third party?

April 10, 2011

We are witnessing the end of the roman empire except instead of barbarians we have lobbyists.  Today Nickolas Kristof well written column on the recent federal budget crisis, asked  were are the  adults in congress.  My son, Asher, recently wrote something similar on his blog.

I do not think we can expect adults in congress.  The  time for that is long gone.  But are we not the parents?  When  will we stop pointing fingers at the political system (something I do all the time) and take action.   The people in government, and I include  Obama in this, have as their main priority staying in government.  They stay in government by buying our votes. They get the money to buy our votes from special interest groups.  The group I hate the most is the military industrial complex that  Eisenhower warned us again when I  was just a child.  I hate them because not only do  the drain our economy but because they are also responsible for the death of so many solders and  civilians throughout  the world.  Right after that, we have the health care industry.  And then there is the crazy base of the republican party.  I am sorry but these people are living in the dark ages.  How I wish the rapture would happen and carry these people away.

I am afraid that now that we have let the government be taken over, there are no easy way for the people to get back control.  I am thinking the only thing to do is to create a third party.  And yes, that might mean that the republican will win even more control but frankly that will only speed up the process that is underway and force others to take much needed action.  Hopefully, it might result in giving those that are still sane, a voice.

I was recently asked to go to private fund raising event for Obama in San Francisco.  I went to such an event when he was running and via these method  gave money to his campaign.  This  time, I said no.  I am not going to give him a dime.  What ever money I have to spend on political matters, will be spent in calling out the politicians/children/criminals out.

 

 

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Posted in Political Views | 1 Comment »

The Times They Are a Changing

February 15, 2011

Bob Dylan could not have said it better in 1992.  It is worthwhile to read these letters as we think about Egypt.

Come gather ’round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You’ll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin’
Then you better start swimmin’
Or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin’.

Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won’t come again
And don’t speak too soon
For the wheel’s still in spin
And there’s no tellin’ who
That it’s namin’.
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin’.

Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don’t stand in the doorway
Don’t block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There’s a battle outside ragin’.
It’ll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin’.

Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don’t criticize
What you can’t understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin’.
Please get out of the new one
If you can’t lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin’.

The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin’.
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin’.

Posted in World Situation | Leave a Comment »

Egypt: a hope an a plea

February 14, 2011
Last night we had dinner with some friends.  They, like me are jewish. The dinner conversation turn to the topic of Egypt and what it might mean for the world at large but also what I might mean for Israel.  My friends were concern that Egypt would become an Islamic state like Iran and that of course would become a major problem for Israel. I felt very different and expressed my thoughts which you can read below.
The USA, Israel and the other  first world democratic states can not keep putting bandages on the economic and political problems of the world.  We can not say how wonderful freedom and democracy is but actively deny it to billions of people through the world because we do not trust them.  Not dealing with the problems now means dealing with them later when they will only be worse.  But of course that is what we do with so many issues.
I love Israel.  To be truly honest, I am not sure I would give up my life for the USA but  I think that I would for Israel.  But Israel must find a way to co exist in a region of the world that is Arab and Moslem.  It can not build a wall high enough to keep out the missiles  that will eventually come.  And the situation in Egypt may be a great opportunity because the need is so great there.
Some of my friends last nigh talked of the Muslim Brotherhood and how they would take over Egypt because Egypt has no other political institutions (thanks to all the money we sent to buy off the government and the army).  My friends fail to understand the new order, the power of Facebook., Twitter and Al Jazera.  I am sure that when I was in my 20s inn the streets of America  and protesting  the insane war in Vietnam that things would have been different if we had the internet then.  Not only would we have been able to organize more efficiently but we would have had the facts to support our case that the President of the United States, Lyndon Johnson was lying to the people of the United States.
Our American government provided Egypt with 1.5 billion dollars which was mostly for military aid.  I would guess that more than half of it went into the pockets of the generals.  We spend more than that every week in Afghanistan.  What if we had invested in colleges in Egypt? What if we had given American companies incentives to build factories in Egypt?  It is not too late for that.
The median age in Egypt is 24 I believe.  How will Egypt deal with this youth bubble?  It will be a great challenge.  The Egyptian youth is largely uneducated.  Why can’t we spend a few billion dollars teach them the skills that they need? By the way, there are over 100 million arabs between the age of 15 and 30.
Israel needs to find a way to help the Egyptian people.  It  need to stop thinking  of Arabs in the ways the Americans thought (think of the black and hispanics).
We have no rational choice but to engage and help but this must be done in away that respects Egyptians and all human beings.

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Posted in Israel, Political Views, World Situation | 1 Comment »

Intel Alumni Panel Discussion

February 10, 2011

Last month, I chaired a panel at an event held by the Intel Alumni Group.  Like many companies with strong cultures, the alumni still identify with the company and therefore with each other.  It was an unusual event for me. I had not participated in any high tech event in some ten years with this one exception.  While at Intel, I had been a very active participant at industry events as a key note speaker, speaker, panelist and panel chair.  The Intel PR people found that I was “user friendly” and I realized that the difference between being a dreamer and a visionary was having a PR dept so I cooperated.  In fact, I loved public speaking.  But after I left Intel  in 1999, I no longer had a platform or anyone  to pay for my expenses to attend conferences.    I am still not sure why I agreed to chair the panel  Maybe it was because I feel I owe Intel much and the much of the Intel that I owe is now alumni.  But probably it was just that I was asked and asked in such a nice way by Bruce Schechter, the founder and president of the Intel Alumni Network.  A summary of the event with photos can be seen here.

I had two  key requirement. The first  was that I  could pick the panel.  I knew from my past experience that the purpose of a panel (or a talk) is not only to provide information but also to provide entertainment.  I am pretty good at both of these but probably better at the later.  So in order to do that I had to pick people that I knew to have opinions and most importantly attitude. Here is a link to the bios for the panel members. The second was that the panel discussion would be video taped and made available on the Internet. You can see it here.

I decided to break the panel discussion into three parts.  The first part was the question:  In what way did you experience at Intel help you to become an entrepreneur or early stage investor.  The second questions was:  In what way did your experience at Intel not prepare you to become an entrepreneur and/or early stage investor.  The third question had to do with follow on interest by the group  in the topic of venture investing.

The event had a pretty big turn out by the standards of the other Alumni events.  And many  former senior executives attended.  I was amazed that Andy Grove actually came.  I was very happy to see him and was very pleased when he later send an email to Bruce complimenting the panel discussion  (I had not gotten very many compliments from him during my time at Intel).  But it was also sad to see how frail  Andy  had become.  He suffers from Parkinson Disease. I am sure his mind (and his tongue) is as sharp as ever and he must be so frustrated by his physical disabilities.

The video is the best way to understand the panel discussion.  It starts at the 12th minutes. Prior to that is the normal introduction stuff and a brief speech by Ted Jenkins one of the first Intel Employees.  He spoke about Intel as a start up which may be of interest to some of you.  Here is a link to a paper the Ted co wrote on the early days.

One of the thing I had to consider when talking about Intel was the life cycle of the company.  The company  was founded in 1968.  Intel had two lives. The first was as the leader in semi conductor memory.  The second was at the leader in microprocessors.  The memory business had been under attach in the early 80s by Japaneses companies.  The survival of Intel was at stake.  The companies revenue was under a billion dollars.  That is when one of the bravest and most significant management decisions was ever taken. Gordon Moore and  Andy Grove decided to get out of the memory business and become an microprocessor company which meant laying off more than a third of the company. In my opinion, the company had an opportunity in the mid 90s to have a third life as  Network/Internet company but there was no one at the company left capable of leading that transition. Here is a link to a time line of the company.    So in thinking about how the Intel experience informed people, it is  important to keep in mind when the person was working at the company.

I have often been critical of Intel but I have great respect for the company and what I learned there.  Andy really appreciated it when I said during the panel discussion that I find myself trying to teaching entrepreneurs to do the things I would not do when I was at Intel.

The panel generally felt that the experience of working at Intel provided them with with the skills to be more a board member or an advisor to an early stage company than  to be the entrepreneur that  started it.  That makes sense since Intel was a pretty large company when everyone on the panel work there.  It is hard for someone that works for a large company to start or go to an early stage company.  It seems that there are very few successful companies that were started by former Intel employees.

Towards the end of the panel there was a discussion about what happened to Intel and how the culture had changed.  It was pretty interesting but maybe had a little too much Intel bashing.

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More on Ken Olsen

February 9, 2011

I  continued to think about Ken Olsen and Digital Equipment.  Ken was a trustee and major contributor to Gordon College which is a Christen College.  Ken was very religious.  I never really engaged with him about that but one day he told me that he wanted computers (he meant what would be come personal computers) that could be used by his minister and by his secretary.  I turned that into the phrase “a computer for clerks and clerics”.    Gordon College made two videos here and here about Ken that are worth watching.

Some friends have asked me to share a few observations about Ken.  I have so many things I could share but here are a few.

Ken loved mechanical things.  He would often hang out in the model shop.  But his real love was for power supplies.

He also was very interested in cables.  He hate the mess of cables that often came out of the back of small computers and word processors.  At one time he had a poster made of the back of the Decmate.  It was a mess of cables.  The caption for the poster was “Marketing or Engineering? “.  I came up with my own slogan which was “could you imagine what software would look like if you could see it?”.  Ken did not really get the joke.  He never really understood software.

He loved to take walks around the mill and of course knew all the secret routes.

It is true that  when we got one of the first IBM PC’s, Ken came to my lab and he and I opened it and disassembled it with a screw driver.  He looked at how it was constructed and say that if I ever designed a computer like that I would be fired.

He really believed in the power of great engineering and had little respect for marketing.  I will never forget one conversation I had with Ken (which really resulted in my deciding to leave Digital).  We had launched our low end products, the Professional, the  Rainbow and Decmate II  (I was responsible for the Pro and much of the  hardware  for the other two).  We were not doing very well (that is an understatement since all the products failed in the market for a number of reasons).  I said to Ken, “if we are going to be successful, we will need great marketing and good engineering”.  He said no, I was totally wrong that “we needed great engineering and good marketing”.  We went back an forth on this for a while and then he said. “You don’t understand.  We are not capable of great marketing”.

People sometimes compare Ken and Steve Jobs.  I  never worked for Jobs but did know him (it has been more than 12 years ago that I had contact with him personally).  There are some similarities.  Both were visionaries.  Ken’s vision was about making computer that did not have to have computer rooms and could be used directly by knowledge works  and not by computer experts.  But Ken was not autocratic.  He was much more Machiavellian.  Jobs obviously understands software.  But they both created very successful companies that were great reflections of there values and personalities.

There was something seductive and sweet about Ken.  Even those my relationship with him did not end in a good way, I always treasure my memory of him.  And most importantly that great smile.

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