I never imagined I would be writing this post. I was planing on writing what I thought would be my last post about Intel. It was to deal with the departure of Paul Otellini the former CEO and a recent article about him published by the Atlantic. I will do an abbreviated comment on that and then begin to get into the meat of the Wintel Resurrection.
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Category Archives: Avram’s Past
Midas List: The class of 2013
Forbes just published their Midas List of the Top 100 Venture Capital Investors. I was listed in the top ten (number eight) ten years ago. That was the last time I appeared on the list. It was interesting to me to see the top ten of 2013 and to realize that not one person … Continue reading
I almost died 50 years ago
I was 18 years old and only weighed about 107 pounds. I had just graduated from the Merchant Seamen School for Stewards and Cooks in Santa Rosa CA where I had spent the previous three months. I was hoping to sail on the President Monroe which was one of the few luxury liners that sailed … Continue reading
Rejected by Wikipedia
If you are a regular reader of this blog you will realized that at the age of 68, I am beginning to be concerned about legacy issues. It was been concerning to me that I have no Wikipedia entry about me because Wikipedia will have a long self live (certainly longer than I will have). So I asked a friend who is also a write to submit an entry for me on Wikipedia. We worked on a draft which he actually toned down. My first draft was actually in my opinion the most interesting because it was written more like a story then an encyclopedia. I wanted the entry to focus on what I think are my three major achievements, playing a principle role in laying the foundation for today’s consumer internet, founding Intel Capital which became the most successful Corp. Venture group and one of the must successful venture activities in the world and having accomplished this an more without ever having gone to University.
If you are a regular reader of this blog you will realized that at the age of 68, I am beginning to be concerned about legacy issues. It was been concerning to me that I have no Wikipedia entry about me because Wikipedia will have a long self live (certainly longer than I will have). So I asked a friend who is also a write to submit an entry for me on Wikipedia. We worked on a draft which he actually toned down. My first draft was actually in my opinion the most interesting because it was written more like a story then an encyclopedia. I wanted the entry to focus on what I think are my three major achievements, playing a principle role in laying the foundation for today’s consumer internet, founding Intel Capital which became the most successful Corp. Venture group and one of the must successful venture activities in the world and having accomplished this an more without ever having gone to University.
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Avram's Past / broadband / Government / Intel / Old Media / Technology
Avram’s Congressional Testimony on HDTV 1998
The House Commerce Committee Subcommittee on Telecommunications, Trade and Consumer Protection convened a 2 1/2 hour meeting to discuss HDTV standards and deployment issues on April 24, 1998. I was invited to give testimony. The panel was made up of a large group of executives representing the consumer electronics, the television broadcast and the cable industries. In addition there were two representatives from the computer industry, Bob Stearns from Compaq and me, from Intel. The chair was Billy Tamzin, a republican who later went on to make a fortune as a lobbyist. The ranking member from the democrats was Ed Markey (now running for the Senate in MA). Stearns and I had a couple of objectives. While most of the panel saw a TV, we saw a Monitor. We understood that with that if we could achieve high resolution and progressive scan, the HDTV set of the future could serve as a monitor for computers. Just like the CD and DVD, the consumer industry do the R&D and and manufacturing of important and innovative products which the computer industry would “highjack” for its own use. Everyone one on the panel had their own agenda and often it was a secret agenda. Continue reading
The birth of Intel Capital
Intel Capital was named the number one venture capital “firm” for 2012 by PrivCo.
I feel proud of this accomplishment because I consider myself a co-founder of Intel Capital along with Les Vadasz. But then again, it is a bit difficult to accept that Intel Capital could be so successful without me 🙂
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Drinks with Finis Conner leads to contemplating the future history of rotating storage devices
1980 – The world’s first gigabyte-capacity disk drive, the IBM 3380, was the size of a refrigerator, weighed 550 pounds (about 250 kg), and had a price tag of $40,000( $113 thousand in present day terms [13]), 2.52 GB 1980 – ST-506 first 5¼ inch drive released with capacity of 5 megabytes, cost $1500 Last week, I was contacted by Finis … Continue reading
One of my mentors has passed-Mort Ruderman a real Mensch.
There were five men that played a major role in my professional development. I just learned that one of them passed on last year, Mort Ruderman. I worked for four of these men but not for Mort. Mort was a friend who played a major role in my professional development over a fifteen year span. I suspect that everyone that has some significant professional success can point to a few people that made that success possible. I know that I would not have achieved the things I achieved if it was not for these five men. Continue reading
Could Qualcomm really buy Intel: It is all Heddy Lamar’s fault
Learning today that Qualcomm has a market capitalization that is now greater than Intel’s, makes me a bit sad and disappointed in myself. Continue reading
My 1993 Performance Review at Intel (a piece of my history but also a piece of the history of the Internet)
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
Two Thirds Done 