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It Will Take Innovation, Not Debt, to Save Italy
In my recent post, “The Next War Will Be Like No Other,” I wrote about the growing tension between generations. As populations age, younger people are being asked to support more older people, while also inheriting the debts accumulated by their predecessors. That tension becomes especially difficult when economic growth is weak. Governments face demands to protect pensions, improve public…
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The Billions Invested in Nothing (The Story of BiiN)
Steve McGeady, a friend and former colleague at Intel, posted a link to an YouTube video that covered the creating of BiiN a joint venture between Intel and Siemens. I played a significant role in making BiiN happen. It was one of many failures that I had in my career. Watching the video and remembering that time, I thought…
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The Next War Will Be Like No Other
The war of the generations We are living in a remarkable time, and a frightening one. Artificial intelligence is driving a transformation that gives us reasons for both excitement and fear. The world order that emerged after World War II appears to be coming apart. Whether another order will replace it, or whether we are heading toward greater chaos, is…
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My Mother Was Born 100 Years Ago but she will always be young to me
It is hard for me to think of my mother as someone born a hundred years ago. In my mind, she will always be a beautiful young woman. She was born Marlyn Harris in San Francisco on October 16, 1926. She married my father when she was still seventeen and was just over eighteen when I was born. I wrote…
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Bringing fiber internet into a palazzo built in 1731.
As many of you know, I played a leading role in developing the residential broadband so many of us now take for granted. From 1993 to 2000, I spent seven years working across the ecosystem, from silicon to applications. As Intel’s Corporate Vice President of Business Development, I also used Intel Capital, which I co-founded, to invest in critical startups…
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Goodbye Mark Stephens AKA Bob Cringely
My friend Mark Stephens died last Saturday. Most of the world knew him as Robert X. Cringely. I knew him as the neighbor who stood with me on garage roofs in Sonoma County, pointing dish antennas at distant ridge tops in 2020, because it was not possible to get a broadband internet connection at my location. That is how we became…
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The Netherlands, a Graveyard for Jews, Makes a Choice
In 1969, I moved to Rotterdam to help found the Thoraxcenter at Erasmus University. There I met my first wife. We lived in the Netherlands for five years, and both of our sons were born there. I became fluent in Dutch, a skill I have retained. My wife and I had agreed that our sons would be raised Jewish. She…
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I am getting tired of being me
I always had a lot of drive. I used to joke that I would wake up standing because I jumped out of bed. It was not really a joke. It was the truth. For such a long part of my life, I woke up with tremendous energy. That energy would keep up pretty much during the day but would start…
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People Need Something to Lose
My garden was built by workers from Gaza in 1975 A friend of my wife, a well-known television producer, is visiting Israel. During one of his meetings, he learned that on October 7 thousands of Gazans who were not Hamas fighters followed Hamas into Israel and took part in the atrocities. He was astonished. The Israeli army later estimated that…
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AI, longevity, and the End of Growing Old as we Know It
I have been thinking about the impact of AI on health and what that will do to the concept of age. Usually when we talk about longevity, we think about how much longer people will live. Those of us who are more sophisticated about this topic break it down into health span and sick span, hoping we will have not…
Thoughts and experiences of an eighty one year old Wild Duck.
