I happened to be cleaning up some old files and came across a number of my performance reviews at Intel. I am posting a summary of one, written in 1993, which dealt with my job performance almost twenty years ago. This was the beginning of the most important period of my career. It was also … Continue reading
Category Archives: Technology
Intel enters the set top race again and again
For twenty years, Intel has tried to enter the set top box market. The company still does not have a strategy for success in my opinion. Continue reading
Facebook: Mixed feelings about Facebook and some views on the IPO.
Facebook is the latest in a line of mediocre technology companies that were at the right place at the right time. Continue reading
Life Blues: My reaction to Outlaw Blues by Jonathan Taplin
In reading Outlaw Blues by Jonathan Taplin, 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. Continue reading
How I got the iPad right in 1994 but was wrong about the Information Furnace
Now before you think this post is all about how insightful I was, and I was, it is really about how things turned out differently than I thought and wanted. It really is about a failure to implement a vision and an exploration of the possibility that things could have ended up differently.
In that very same article (again 1994), I coined the term i-pad (see the Article). Sixteen years later, Apple announced the iPad on Jan. 27th, 2010. Coincidentally, it happened to be my 65th birthday. Continue reading
Rotterdam 1969-1974: The Thoraxcenter
Towards the end of 1968, I accepted a position at the Thoraxcenter in Rotterdam. My task was to create and run the computer dept. It was actually two depts. One was part of the medical school at Erasmus University and the other was part of the Dijkzigt University Medical Center. Accepting the position was both … Continue reading
These are the good old days for Apple and not just because Jobs has passed
Companies like products, have life cycles. Apple is very unusual because it was able to reinvent itself. In particular, Apple went from being a niche PC player with a relatively small market share to the leader in revolutionizing music (iPod), the cell phone (iPhone) and creating and leading the tablet market (iPad). But each of … Continue reading
Do I really need to travel with seven devices
This is nuts. Look what I am traveling with: 1)Macbook Air, 2) iPad, 3) Kindle Fire, 4)Kindle, 5), iPhone , 6) iPod Touch and 7) AppleTV. In addition I carry various thumb drives, a digital camera and wear a flitbit. And guess what? They all do different things well. Continue reading
Steve Jobs Bio: A review sort
I just finished Walter Isaacson’s bio of Steve Jobs. I would say it is informative but not insightful. For tech junkies, especially of the Apple genre, the book has detailed information about the history of Apple and especially how product and business decisions were made. This history is presented in a clear and factual manor. … Continue reading
Facebook stop stealing my blog posts
I listened to an interesting interview (aren’t all) on Fresh Air about the war between google, amazon, facebook and apple (notice Microsoft was not even mentioned. By the author of this article on the same topic in Fastcompany Magazine. Clearly many companies are fighting to control the user/customer. When I was at Intel in the … Continue reading
Two Thirds Done 