Two Thirds Done

Thoughts and experiences of an eighty one year old Wild Duck.

Avram Miller by the sea
EN | IT

587 posts since 2006

Tag: Avram’s Book

  • Failing to help Intel after I left

    Intel had been good to me, and I felt a responsibility to help the company even after I left. I offered help to Paul Otellini when he became CEO. Paul and I had been friends both at work and socially. I told Paul I would be willing to help in strategy issues and no one had to know, and I did not have to be paid. He politely thanked me but only after a few years did he has for help. That is when Intel started up the Ultra Mobility Group to develop Atom project which was a microprocessor designed for mobile applications. There was a new group set up under Anand Chandrasekher. Anand eventually left for Qualcomm. I provided Paul with a verbal report which was pretty negative on Intel’s effort. I felt it was too little too late and the Atom would not be successful. I also thought that the team was weak overall. I suggested to Paul that Intel should acquire a few early-stage companies not only for some new technology but to get some additional talent. I also suggested some things that Intel could do to make its offering stronger that had to do with new technologies to link devices and servers.

    Paul shocked me. He was not interested in what I had to say, and I guess I was also offended by my suggestion that Intel needed new talent. He said “We have the best people. I would not trade any of our people for any of the people that left”. I was not suggesting bringing back anyone and took this as a swipe at me. It was unusual behavior for Paul who was a pretty nice person in general.

    After Paul was pushed out, Intel installed a duo of Brian Krzanich and Renee James. I did not know Brian even though we had started at Intel around the same time. Brian came up through the manufacturing organization. I knew Renee very well, and we were and are still friends.7

    Once again, I wanted to help. I reached out Andy Bryant, whom I also knew well. Andy was and is currently the Chair of the Board. I told him that I wanted to help and that I would do it without acknowledgment or compensation. I said that I would write up my ideas and send them to Brian and Renee as long as they agreed that they would read what I was about to write. I think I also contacted Renee about this. I then send the following letter to both of them. I never got a response. Please note that this letter was written more than five years ago.

    Intel and the Next Wave of Computing

    Feb. 10, 2014

    Dear Brian and Renee,

    Brian, we have never met during the time I was at Intel (1984-1999). As you may know, I co-founded Intel Capital and conceived and led Intel’s broadband initiative staring in 1992 which lead to both the cable modem DSL infrastructure and residential broadband as we know it. While this effort had a very positive impact on Intel in both growing the consumer market for PCs and significant profits via our investments, it had no long term impact on Intel’s strategy. While I tried to present the opportunities, I saw for the company, and I had little or no impact. I regret this. Intel was good to me. I am hoping that my recommendations to follow might inform some of your thinking.

    Renee, we have known each other for a long time now, although we have had little contact since I left the company. I am hoping that you understand my sincerity and still have respect for my abilities.

    I am going to try to keep this short and concise because I am hopeful that both of you will read it and give it some consideration. My focus will be on the consumer market. I believe much of what I have to say is also relevant to enterprise and SMB. I would be happy to expand on any of this.

    Intel missed the Current Wave of computing
    The computer industry goes through waves of change. We went from Mainframes to Mini Computers, the networked PC, and now Cloud Computing and the post PC era. Almost no technology company is successful in going from one wave to the other.

    The reason for this is pretty simple. New waves start up around the peak growth of the previous wave. It is a time when those riding the current wave have little interest in the new wave or even perceive it as significant. By the time the new wave is in ascension, it is too late for the incumbent to take a leadership role. This is what happened to both Intel and Microsoft.

    Intel ended up having a strategy for the future which was pretty much “make today last.” That was certainly the situation in 1999 when I left the company and is now apparent. However, Intel has many significant assets. It is the leader in semiconductor technology, has talented people, a strong balance sheet and an excellent albeit, fading brand. This document is all about how Intel can once more become a leader in shaping the computer industry.

    Time to skip a wave
    Apple offers an interesting example. Apple never actually was a crucial player in the connected PC. They entered the PC market with the Mac 30 years ago but played a rather insignificant role in how the computer industry evolved. IBM was the leading computer company but on its way down. Digital Equipment Company was the second largest computer company and still on its way up. This was when Microsoft and Intel were able to set the standards and take the leadership of the PC era. But both companies got stuck when the action moved to the Internet. Interestingly, Intel, in particular, played a significant role in creating the transition for the consumer market by driving residential broadband and investing in crucial internet technologies.
    I can take a lot of the credit for that, but also have to own the fact that I was not able to influence Intel’s strategic direction even though I pretty much understood what was about to unfold.

    During the 90s when we would say correctly that “The PC was it” functionality flowed into the PC. I would call the PC a Black Hole which sucked in all that came near it. But by the end of that decade, the functionality was flowing out to the internet. Improvements in technology also allowed for powerful mobile devices. Mobility was the key because there was no way to put a PC in your pocket. Apple was the beneficiary of this, as you well know. I won’t go into that story. But it is an important example of how an established company can play a role in defining the next wave.

    I think Intel has such an opportunity now. The key to this is understanding consumer needs and then matching them to innovative technology.

    Cloud Computing – Kind of
    Right now we have a hybrid of client and cloud computing. Some activities/applications run on the client and some run in the cloud. Some data is on our devices and may or may not be replicated remotely while some of our data is only in the cloud. Google is dominant in defining cloud computing. But Amazon and Apple have critical and different roles to play.

    Google has taken over the leadership role that Microsoft once had. Like Microsoft, I believe they are an inch deep and a mile wide. Apple has significant long term problems because they need to introduce and dominate new categories for their business model to work. But there may not be such new categories available. TV, as Intel has learned, may not lead to the Promised Land. Apple does have opportunities in physical commerce. The combination of their large market share in smartphones, iBeacon, and iTunes (all those credit cards) can make Apple the leader in physical commerce. Amazon has fantastic potential with their extensive knowledge of consumers and AWS. Developing an Amazon strategy should be high on Intel’s list of objectives. Amazon may turn out to be the leader in the next phase of computing as strange as that might sound to you.

    Why Cloud Computing is Broken
    The strength of the PC era was due to the dominance of Microsoft and its ability to establish APIs. While the Internet has standards, there are many competing ways to do things. Technical and business issues limit interpretability between applications/services. Complexity is increasing at an alarming rate.

    Part of the movement to the Cloud was the result of the complexity of synchronizing data between different devices. But now the mess has just moved. Take the example of photos. If I want to share my photos with my Facebook Friends, I have to upload them to Facebook. If I want to share them with my friends on Google+, I have to upload them to Google+, etc.

    If I have my media on the cloud in let’s say, Google Drive and then want to share something on Facebook, the data will have to be copied and transferred from the cloud to my computer/device and then back to the cloud. The speed of this will be determined by the up and down of the consumers’ network rather than the rate at which data could be transferred between Google and Facebook. This is true if I have my data on Dropbox as well. And now there are two copies.

    I am just giving one of the so many examples. Of course, each problem could be addressed by groups that would work together to create a standard but that is a slow process, and it is not clear that the leaders would be interested.

    Key Consumer Needs

    I am going to describe a set of consumer needs that are not being met.

    Integrity
    This is a concept that goes beyond data security. Consumers want to be able to control who can access their information, including such things as photos. This means that while I might give my friend access to a photo, my friend can not share that without my permission. Consumers will want to be able to change permissions. Or set up other attributes. For instance, a photo can be visible to a particular person for only a certain amount of time such as SnapChat.

    Consumers want to have only one copy of a photo to manage. They also want to be sure that their photos will not only be secure and under their control but that they will be preserved.

    Independence
    Currently, most of us have a one to one relationship with our devices/computers. It is my information that is on my Mac, iPhone, and iPad for instance. Once computing moves to the Net and the method is just a way of communicating to the Net, there is no longer a need to have such a linkage. Any desktop could be my desktop. Any phone could be my phone. All that needs to happen is that the device can identify who I am.

    Interaction
    The way we communicate with the intelligence that is the Net will change a great deal. Frankly, I am not sure how all this will play out, but I am pretty sure it will. I think voice, gestures, location, and knowledge will inform the way we interact.

    Intelligence
    We are about to go through rapid change in the intelligence of the Net. This is being driven by increased computer performance and a better understanding of data mining (big data). But to be effective, the more information the net has about a consumer, the higher the IQ. This, of course, will lead to concerns about data privacy. But the power of this will out the way the concerns. If Waze can get me to work 10 minutes faster, I will be happy to let Waze keep information about my driving habits.

    The OS in the Sky
    I am going to describe a world in which all applications run in the cloud. I know that this will assume a high bandwidth, low latency and very reliable connection between the consumer and the network. Not all consumers will have this, and some may never have it, but I believe that the bulk of consumers will end up with such networks especially on a global basis. The wave I am talking about will probably take at least ten years to establish.

    Devices will become the I/0, control, and security for the computing experience primarily. Allowing anybody to use any device. There will be many kinds of devices, and their functions will drive their form factors. Let’s consider four personal devices:
    Desktop: This will consist of a flat panel of various sizes and resolution, speakers and mice, other peripherals such as keyboards and pointing devices. The client can be a small device attached to the display, but it can be a tablet or smartphone equivalent
    Tablet: This will be a thinner version of today’s tablets and will come in various sizes.
    Phone: This will be something that can fit into a pocket/purse
    Wearable: This can be a watch or other wearable device.

    These devices have only a few things to do. One is to display, get input from the user in various forms including video and voice, and most importantly to provide for identification of the user. For the sake of discussion, I am going to assume we are using a fingerprint.

    Once the ID of the consumer is established, the device will display the appropriate information. Using today’s environment as an example, I could see a desktop on my big display similar to what I see on my mac or I could see the home page on my tablet. Of course, the look and feel of all this will change a great deal over time.

    There will be other devices in the home that could be shared at the family unit level such as the equivalent of Apple TV or Chromecast. Eventually, these capabilities will be integrated into TVs.

    No application runs in the device. Instead, the display, audio, etc. is streamed over the net. Using powerful GPUs this should not be a problem provided that network latency is low enough to support interaction. It is the latency issue that is most important. There are reasonable technical solutions to create networks with high enough QoS to be adequate for the task.

    Now for the more difficult conceptual issues
    Devices all communicate with a server that manages the consumer environment. There is a very high degree of security between the devices and the server. The server system needs to be highly reliable, but that can be done. An easy way to think of this is having the desktop virtualized and in the Net and then communicating with various applications and services in the cloud.

    All consumer data would stay on the server. It would, of course, be backed up and archived in much of the way companies like Dropbox operate.

    Now, let’s go back to the example of a photo. If I wanted to post a photo on Facebook, the server would provide a link to the photo. By legal agreement, Facebook would not be allowed to copy the photo. When they wanted to display it, they would have to get it from the server. If the consumer decided to remove it from Facebook, Facebook could no longer be able to show it. The consumer could, however, allow others to have virtual copies of the photo. Once again this would be a link. It is not much different from Dropbox. I can give you a link to a photo on my dropbox, and I can remove your access. The difference here is that you would not copy the photo.

    What should Intel do
    Intel could use its technology to develop, manufacture and sell all the devices and the servers. It could create an open set of API’s so that other companies can build products including servers that inter-operate in this new environment. Intel could develop the legal framework to make all of this work. It would probably have to bring in many companies, and this may prove very difficult, but I think it can be done.

    Intel Capital should focus on investment activity aimed at companies that can build in this new environment.

    Intel will need to push various network standards that will allow for the low latency and highly secure networks required by this architecture.

    Intel is uniquely positioned to do all this. It has all the essential pieces. Intel can use its semiconductor capabilities to be able to offer the best devices and the best servers. It can use its knowledge of computer security to create a trusted environment that consumers will want. It can use its brand reputation to position this new computing platform.

    Implementation
    Please let me know if you would like me to clarify or expand on any of this.

    avram

  • Intel’s Board Fails at its most important task

    I have personally served on dozen of boards. Five of these companies were public, Maxis, King World, CMGI, PCCW, and World Online. I have not served on a public company board since 2002. The majority of the boards were private companies. I resigned my last board position at the end of 2018. I don’t plan to join any more boards.

    I also served on several nonprofit boards such as Plugged In, Equal Access and CalArts. I like to say that the difference between serving on a for-profit board and a nonprofit board is that the for-profit company pays you a lot of money to ignore your advice and you pay the nonprofit a lot of money to disregard your advice.

    Serving on a board can be very frustrating.  The board is supposed to represent the shareholders and make sure they are treated fairly by the company.  Its main task, in my opinion, is to make sure the company has the right CEO.  In this regard, I believe that the Intel board has been a failure, but it is not that unusual that a board fails in its primary task. 

    Intel’s first board was established in 1971. It had six members at that time. Bob Noyce was the CEO at the age of 44 years old. Gordon Moore was 42 years old. Intel was the third company that Bob and Gordon started. Art Rock was the board chair and the key investor in the company. He was just 44 years old. It is thought that Art was the person that came up with the term Venture Capital. He also funded Apple.

    It is hard to imagine how young everyone was. Max Palesvsky was 47. He invested in Scientific Data Systems with Art Rock had also financed. He sold that company to Xerox in 1969 and became very wealthy. Jim Guzy who was just 33 years old in 1971. Jim started his career in the disk industry working at Memorex. He was a serial entrepreneur and angel investor. He actually turned out to be the longest serving board member and left at the age of 70 in 2008. I knew all of them but not until I joined Intel in 1984. I don’t think I interacted with the Intel board until 1988. When Andy was CEO. Andy was only 33 years old when Intel was formed as was Les Vadasz. There was also a board member named Charles Smith who was 61 years old and represented an investment by the Rockefeller family. The average age was a director was 45.2 years old. I really liked Max and would visit him sometimes at his Los Angeles home. He had a fantastic collection of art.

    Three years later, in 1974, the board doubled to ten members.  This included two additional insiders, Andy Grove, and Ed Gelbach.   The average age of the board was now 46.2 years.

    Most of the board stayed on so by 1988, the average age was over 60 years old.  It pretty much stayed that way from that time on. The number of inside board members dropped until it was under 25%. Interestingly, many of the early board members were Jewish. This included Art Rock, Andy Grove, Sandy Kaplan, and Max Palesvky.  At one time 40% of the board was Jewish. That was the case when I joined Intel in 1984.  Now, there is not a single Jew on the board.  By the way, there are only two women out of the ten board members. Most of the board consists of white males.  I would be generous if I said that two or three of the board members had any real technology experience.

    So Noyce was 42 when he became CEO and 47 when Moore took that Job at the age of 46. Moore was 57 when Grove took over at the age of 51. Grove was 61 when Barrett took over, and he turned 65 when Otellini became CEO at 55 years. Barrett resigned at the age of 62 and was followed by Krzanich at the age 53. Kranich was pushed out at the age of 57 and followed by the current CEO Swan who was 58.

     The average years on the board went up to more than 16 years and had pretty much stayed there until recently when there has been a drop.   It seems like the average age of S&P board members is also around 60.  Here is an excellent link to the average age of board members.  https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2017/04/06/age-diversity-within-boards-of-directors-of-the-sp-500-companies/

    But the nature of the board has changed a great deal. In the beginning, it was comprised of the two founders and the initial investors. The board was young. Over time, new board members had less knowledge of technology and the technology markets. Many of them had never worked in a small company. There were a few like David Yoffie, a Harvard Professor of Business, who were strategic.

    As boards begin to age, they get kind of cozy.  Board members often help out other board members.  There are rarely conflicts on boards.  The compensation can also play a significant role.  Board members can make a lot of money by being board members.  A substantial part of my net worth came from my own role as a board member. Sometimes board members sit on several boards together. 

    For a long time, Intel Executives did not serve on the boards of other companies but that slowly changed.  When Paul Otellini was the CEO of Intel not only did he sit on the Intel board but he was also on the Google board.  While Paul made a lot of money from his position as CEO of Intel, he may have made significantly more from serving on the Google board.  

    The most critical role that a board has is to make sure that the company has the right CEO. This is where boards fail so often. It is difficult to remove a CEO unless there is some obvious and compelling reason. Usually, the CEO was very involved in bringing the board member onto the board.

    In this regard, the Intel board has failed at its primary responsibility.  Since Andy Grove, resigned as CEO, each CEO has been pretty much a failure in my opinion.  Barrett was an operation guy that did not have a strategic bone in his body.  Otellini was a finance guy turned sales guy who also did not have any strategic abilities.  Brian Kzanich was the first really political CEO.  He did a terrible job especially concerning staying competitive in manufacturing, and he came from Manufacturing.  He was fired for having a relationship with an employee, but that was just a cover for being fired for incompetence.   There is a new guy, Bob Swan who was a CFO his whole career.  Appointing a finance guy as CEO is a typical move by a board that has no understanding of the company but does understand finance. 

    There have been 40 different members of the Intel board including the current ten.

  • A little bit of the book

    Staying Alive

    I was seven years old when I began thinking about the universe and my own role in it. Staring at the ceiling in the Stanford Convalescent Home, in Palo Alto, I asked myself why I had such a weak body and such a strong mind.

    It’s terrifying when you can’t breathe, thinking you are about to die; panic only makes it worse. My father turned away from me during times when I was loaded into an ambulance and which headed for the emergency room. It reminded him too much, I think, of his own suffering from the same problem, asthma as a child. My father was not yet thirty years old. Maybe he felt guilty about having passed it on to me. My father and my mother fought all the time–they screamed at and hit each other regularly. I worried if their rage would spill over and they were going to hurt me. This would often trigger an asthma attack, and off to the hospital, I would go. Finally, the doctors thought I needed to go to a convalescence home probably just to get me away from my parents. It was called the Stanford Convalescent Home, and it was to be my home for almost a year. My parents hardly ever visited me there. I was alone. This meant I had plenty of time to engage myself in many conversations in my head. It is now the Ronald McDonald House.

    Like most kids, Superman was my hero, but I think it was Clark Kent I really admired — nerdy on the outside, superhero on the inside. Einstein was my other favorite hero. I liked the fact that he was a misfit and rebel as much as I was in awe of his genius. My mother had introduced me to the figure of Einstein who was very popular in the 50s. When I had difficulties tying my shoes, she told me that Einstein could not tie his shoes either. I am sure she just made that up, but it made me feel better about myself.

    Even though I was sick, I still found the world to be a fantastic place. I was deeply curious about everything, especially physics, and I very much wanted to be able to continue to live even in the imperfect combination of discovery, laughter, sickness, and fear that characterized my life.

    I believed in God, but I did not blame him for my sickness. Frankly, I did not think God was even aware of me or my plight. I decided it was my challenge to overcome pneumonia and chronic asthma that kept landing me in the hospital and to use my mind to improve the universe. If I could improve the universe, I reasoned, God would make sure I lived, but if I failed, I would die. I came to believe that my survival would depend on my actions and contributions. Over time I developed four principles to guide me: Appreciate Creation; add to it; be funny and playful; love and care for others. To do these things, I needed my body to become stronger.

    I did my best to be funny for the nurses knowing they took better care of me if they liked me. It was all about survival. It was at this place that I discovered the principles on which I would base everything I would do. It was there that I began to think about how I would use my life. As a child, I accepted illness as part of who I was, but I didn’t believe that I was destined to be killed by it. I thought I had the potential to change the outcome and I did.

    Forty years later, I was a-washed in these memories as I realized I was standing in the one place I had felt safe as a child, the Stanford Convalesce Home which was now called the Lucie Packard Children’s Hospital. Steven Spielberg had invited me to participate in an event for his Starlight Foundation for chronically and terminally ill children which is why I was there. The actual Convalesce Home was in a different building close by. It had been turned into the Ronald McDonald House. It is there, where I had spent hours alone in my mind, repainting, rearranging, reimagining my room. I would play with the dimensions of the room and rotate it in my mind so the ceiling would become one of the walls. I would change the colors of the walls. It is where I discovered my intuition and learn to trust it.

    Failed Student but Gifted Child

    Sometime in the autumn of 1952, I returned to my home in San Francisco. I remember vividly going to the Soda Fountain across the street and ordering a Root Beer Float. The Soda Fountain had been on our street before I went away to the convalescence home, but now they had installed a jukebox. I listen to a lot of different singers. I don’t think we ever listen to music at my home so listening to the jukebox was a unique experience for me.

    I was enrolled in the Francis Scott Key School which was about four blocks from our home. I was put in the third grade although I was not yet eight years old. My birthday was in January. That is when the trouble started. I could not relate to the other students especially to the boys who seemed rough to me. I also started to get interested in politics. The 1952 election was between Dwight Eisenhower and Adlai Stephenson. There was a lot of campaigning going on, and this even crept into the schoolyard. Many students wore pins with their candidate on them. For reasons I can no longer understand, I was for Eisenhower who was the republican. Maybe it was because my father was a Republican. But I was also against saying the pledge of allegiance which was required in those days. I got into a lot of arguments with the other kids, and many times I was beaten up. After all, I was a very skinny and sickly kid. Two of my teachers took an interest in me and my situation. One was Mr. Zimmerman, and the other a wonderful woman, but I can no longer remember her name. She had actually been my father’s teacher when he was a boy. It was decided that instead of taking the regular classes, I would sit in the school library and they would have me read different books and occasionally discuss them with me. I had been reading books from an early age and was very comfortable spending my days in the arms of books. One of the most important books I read was A Short History of the World by H. G Wells. I must have read that book more than ten times. I also began to read science books and poetry. I discovered the work of Margret Mead, the well-known anthropologist. I loved reading about indigenous culture like Samoa.

    I was very interested in nuclear physics. I wonder how an eight-year-old could have become interested in nuclear physics. I remember listening to a science program every Saturday morning. There was a lot of discussion, I am sure about nuclear physics, but I also realized that in 1952 there was a great deal of discussion ab the possibility of nuclear war between the former USSR and United States. All over there were posts for shelters at school. We have been taught how to duck and cover as if that was going to help us. So perhaps the constant discussion of nuclear war caused me to want to understand more about atomic energy. I remember learning about U238 uranium and U235 but what age was I when I began to think about the question of Nuclear Fission. I am pretty sure I had a chemistry set by the time I was eight and certainly by the time I was nine I would experiment, but only with chemistry, electricity. I would also use electricity via batteries to try to affect the chemical properties. I must have been some strange little guy.

    I was also the subject of a study myself. My IQ was off the charts, and I mean really off the charts. So I was sent to be studied by people at the department of education. All I remember is taking test after test. Eventually, I found out my IQ, and I can understand why they were so interested. I was what was termed a “Gifted Child.” It was not such a wonderful gift at least at that time. That is for sure.

    The only classes I remember at Francis Scott Key was math, and it was an awful experience. I was able to solve the problems but seemed to do it differently especially if I was doing multiplication and division. It was a problem that continued to follow me through my life. I was able to come up with the right answer and even the best answer, but I had to do it my way. I those days, I could look at a page of numbers that had to be added up, and I would know the answer but not have any idea how I got there. Later in life, I could look at financial statements and immediately recognize any errors. This ability along with many others faded with time.

    I think I was at Francis Scott Key for about two years before we moved to South San Francisco, a superb of San Francisco. I remember that period pretty well but have almost no memory of going to school. We were there for a few years and then moved back to San Francisco. After one year we moved again to the Sunset District, and I attended Herbert Hoover Middle School. The principle of that school was Mr. Zimmerman, the same person that helped me at Francis Scott Key. By that time, I was pretty much failing in all my classes except Office where I helped out at the school office. I was eventually held back one semester.

    During this period that I was asked to participate in a special two-week session at State College of San Francisco for as you may guess, Gifted Children. It was a two-week course in Physics, but I think the purpose was just to observe the weird gifted kids.

    Many years later, in my late 30s, I was invited to dinner at a friend’s home. I asked one of the other guests that I did not know, what she did. She said that she studied Gifted Children. I wanted to scream at her. My emotions were surprising to me. But I just looked at her and said: “do you know what happens to gifted children when they grow up”? I don’t remember her answer.

  • Update on my book

    I am very grateful for my successes as it has allowed me to speak freely of about my many failures.

    Status
    I am making a lot of progress and now have written about seventy pages so far.  I expect the book will about be about 300 pages when finished.  At first, I spent most of my time doing research. I have over a thousand documents. I have a research assistant helping me organize them including dating and tagging. I have done about 30 interviews, and I think I will do about a hundred interviews in total. I plan to spend part of the summer and fall in the USA conducting research and interviews. I have also been reading a lot of books both for study but also, insight into how others have written about business history and/or their own life stories.  Now I am into serious writing.

    Structure
    Importantly, I think I have found the structure for my book. It will be in three volumes. The first is my personal story. At first, I was a bit concerned about writing too much about my own life because I thought that would not be of interest to more than a few. But I realize that my life is unusual, and it contains a lot of lessons. I think it can be an inspiration to those like me that could not do it the “normal way” and also who dealt with serious illness along the way.  The second part of the book is about the stories and understanding that I have regarding the development of the computer industry primarily from the 1980s. The third part of the book are the lessons, and wisdom that I gained through my career. It is made up of the things I often share with entrepreneurs.

    My goal is to complete a final draft by my 75th birthday in January of 2020. I think I can make it.

    Tools
    I have also found some great tools to use. My most important tool is an application called Scrivener, which is available on both the Mac which I use, Windows and IOS which I also use. It is a very effective way to manage writing. I can highly recommend it. There is a free trial. There are also a lot of great tutorials. The second tool I use is  Zotero  It is positioned as “Your Personal Research Assistant.” It is a tool I share with an actual human research assistant, David Richmond.

    I am experimenting with AI voice transcriptions using a program called Temi.  I am using it to transcribe various recorded interviews I have done in the past. I am also using it to dictate sections of the book and am experimenting to see if this is more efficient than just writing from scratch. Don’t know yet. It certainly will be beneficial with the various interviews I hope to conduct.

    Advisors
    Many friends and former associates have offered their help on reviewing sections of the book. That will be very helpful to me.

    Publisher
    I have not engaged with any publishers. I want to do the first pass of the book on my own and then decided what the next step will be.