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: writing

  • To My Grandsons

    I am writing this at the age of 81. Your ages range from 16 to 23. You have never known me as a young man, and I will never know you as old ones. We share only a short stretch of time, perhaps 20 or 30 years, about a third of my life.

    We do not see one another very often. It is not like the days when you were children and would visit me at my home in Sonoma. Now you are busy building lives of your own, and even three of you no longer live with your parents. I know what that is like. Once I became an adult, I spent very little time with my own parents, let alone my grandparents.

    I was once young too. Sometimes I wonder whether, if we had been the same age, we might have been friends. I hope so.

    There were occasions when you and I all came together such as a bar mitzvah or an important birthday, like when my father turned 90 or I turned 70. But now we are scattered all over the world.

    Perhaps one of you will get married while I am still alive, and the family will come together again for that celebration. But most likely, I will see each of you separately from time to time. Perhaps you will visit me in Italy, where I now live. You will always be welcome.

    I wrote a book about my life, The Flight of a Wild Duck. I never expected you to read it when it was published, but it is there, waiting for you if you ever become curious. In the meantime, please ask me questions. Many people, as they grow older, regret not having asked their parents and grandparents more while they still had the chance. I certainly do. So please take advantage of the opportunity I am offering you.

    I never had the chance to talk with my father’s parents about their childhoods. I knew more about my mother’s mother, and even her grandmother, because we were all close when I was growing up. Even so, there is still so much I wish I had asked them.

    While I cannot know you beyond my own lifetime, I can help you understand where you came from and what shaped the years before you arrived. I hope that one day you will tell some of these stories to your own children, whom I may never have the chance to meet.

    Fortunately, we live in a remarkable age. I will leave behind not only letters like this, but books, blog posts, photographs, recordings, and interviews. Your children may someday be able not only to read my words but also to see me, hear my voice, and perhaps know me a little, even though we will never meet. I am hoping to create a digital twin so that they can interact with me, hear my voice, see my face and ask me questions.

    I often wonder about the world you will inherit. It will be very different from the one in which I grew up, and it will present challenges I cannot even imagine. I hope I have given you some tools for dealing with that future. You have all had excellent educations, and you will continue learning throughout your lives. But remember that some of life’s most important lessons are not taught in schools. They are learned from experience, from failure, from love, from loss, and sometimes from listening to someone who has simply lived a very long time. I still have much to offer you should you wish. I would love to teach you about the importance of imagination, of the joy in discovery, of responsibility to make the world a better place.

    As I write this, I find myself smiling, trying to imagine you, many decades from now, sitting down to write a letter to one of your own grandchildren. If that day comes, I hope you will remember that you are part of a long story, one that began long before you were born and will continue long after you are gone. We each get to write only a few chapters. My hope is that mine will help you write yours a little better and most importantly, you will know the possibilities than only love can offer.

    Grandpa Avram

  • Avram Goes Video

    My blog posts are now available as short videos on my new YouTube channel. You can subscribe here. I will also put a link on blog posts for which I have created videos. I hope you enjoy the new format. Here is an example:

    My primary form of communication has been writing blog posts, along with posts on social media such as Facebook and LinkedIn. Yet I myself consume a lot of video from YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram.

    It is a bit strange, because during the majority of my career I often gave speeches, sometimes to audiences of over a thousand people. Most of those were never recorded, although a few were, such as my testimony to Congress regarding the development of HDTV and interviews on news shows.

    Over the last 20 years, I have done a number of video interviews, especially around the time of the publishing of my book, The Flight of a Wild Duck.

    I still give talks, but not often. For instance, I gave a speech at the World Business Forum, which was held in Milan in November 2025.

    I am really comfortable speaking and love having an audience, especially one that can ask me questions. But when I have tried to make videos on my own, they are really awful. I am stilted and have no energy. I need a live audience — but perhaps one of the AIs can simulate this for me.

    However, I have now found an easy way to create videos from my blog posts using NotebookLM’s video generation capability.

    Next, I intend to create a clone of my voice to replace the voice that NotebookLM uses.

    I would be grateful for your comments. Do you think the videos do a good job of capturing what I wrote on my blog? Do you prefer the video or the written blog? Do you think using a clone of my own voice would make this more interesting?

  • A Favor to Ask

    I have been writing this blog since 2007. There are about 570 posts with 430,000 word which is equivalent to about five books.

    I have never worked very hard at getting anyone to read it. Which is a strange thing to admit, because I clearly want people to read it. Otherwise, I would have just kept a diary.

    This week I finally sat down and looked at the numbers properly.

    What I found

    For years I believed I had around fifteen hundred subscribers. I did not. 640 of you receive these posts by email. Another 500 or so follow the blog in a WordPress app and never see an email at all. And 700 more signed up, were sent a confirmation link they never clicked, and have been sitting in limbo ever since, some for years, probably wondering why I stopped writing.

    Several of you have told me exactly this. You subscribed and never heard from me. I am sorry. I did not know, and the dashboard kept telling me everything was fine.

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  • My First Eighty Years Were About Building the Platform — Now the Adventure Begins

    I write about my eighties not because my life has been exceptional, but because so few people my age write about this time of their life at all. I want to inspire them if I can to embrace the future not fear it.

    Trying to Understand What Defines Me

    A few weeks ago, I created a series of Venn diagrams on my iPad to help me understand what defines me.

    The diagrams weren’t about my career. They weren’t about money or success. They were about curiosity, contribution, gratitude, imagination, learning, relationships, health, and creating things that didn’t exist before.

    As I looked at the overlapping circles, I realized that after more than eighty years I was only beginning to understand the thread that connected my life.

    Perhaps my first eighty years were just about building the platform for what is to come next.

    The Curious Child Is Still Alive

    At 81, I still feel like that little boy who found that everything was interesting.

    For the curious, every unanswered question is an invitation, not a problem. Every new technology promised another adventure. Every book opened, another world. That boy never saw limits, only possibilities. The piano keyboard was always waiting for his fingers. The typewriter wait for his touch.

    That little boy is still running my life. And he wants to run even faster now.

    A Beautifully Complicated Life

    My life today is wonderfully, and sometimes frustratingly, complicated.

    I’m still helping create companies. I’m fascinated by science and consider myself a scientist. Writing is a big part of my creative process; in addition to this blog, I am working on two new books. I play the piano and compose music. Deborah and I have moved to Italy, where I’m learning not only another language but another culture. We’re restoring a three-hundred-year-old palazzo and imagining what a truly intelligent home can be. I am using AI to create a digital twin of a home which was born in 1731.

    At the center of all of it is Deborah. Our relationship is the anchor of my life. I have been blessed by such love.

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  • My memoir, The Flight of a Wild Duck, is now free on Substack — thanks to Claude Cowork.

    https://avram.substack.com/p/the-flight-of-a-wild-duck-start-here

    It took me three years to write my memoir. The first year was spent doing research, the second writing, and the third editing. I enjoyed the process immensely.

    I had three audiences in mind while writing it. The first was people like me or parents of people like me who could not follow the normal path through life. The second was readers interested in the history of technology and the computer industry. The third was people fascinated by early-stage investing, innovation, and entrepreneurship.

    That combination made the book somewhat unconventional. But I could not really write three separate books.

    I had also intended to include a section called Lessons, one hundred short lessons, each only a page long. But by then the manuscript was already 340 pages, and I had spent three years on it. I decided instead to publish those lessons separately someday. I still intend to do that.

    The book was published in 2021. It has sold fewer than a thousand copies. I never expected it to become a bestseller, and I certainly did not write it for money, but those numbers have still been disappointing.

    I believe the book is both well written and historically valuable. After all, I was “in the room” when many of the decisions that shaped the technological world we now live in were made and often by me. I felt that part of my contribution to the future of technology was helping document its past. But if nobody reads the book, it is hard to accomplish that goal.

    I chose to self-publish rather than work with a traditional publisher because I wanted complete editorial freedom. But that also meant I had little guidance on how to market the book, and in retrospect I made a strategic mistake.

    I decided to promote it primarily through podcast interviews. Looking back, that was probably not very smart. If someone listens to an hour-long interview with me, they may feel they already know the story and no longer need to read the book. And I suspect that many podcast listeners simply read fewer books.

    Selling the book through Amazon created another barrier: people had to buy it, even though I never cared much about the monetary side. I also found Kindle Direct Publishing surprisingly unfriendly and opaque. There are people who know how to game the system and maximize visibility, but I neither understood those tricks nor wanted to spend my time learning them.

    For quite a while, I had been thinking about putting the book on Substack. I did not want it behind a subscription wall. I simply wanted the entire book available — for free. On Substack, people can share links not only to the book itself but to individual chapters. That creates at least the possibility that the book could spread organically.

    What held me back was learning the ins and outs of Substack. But yesterday, Claude Cowork and I finally made it happen. It is not perfect yet. I still want to add visuals as Claude could not move those over automatically. There are a few formatting issues. But it is already 95% of what I hoped it would be. I will fix the rest over time.

    So I am inviting you to read all or part of The Flight of a Wild Duck. And if you think it is worthwhile, I would deeply appreciate it if you shared the link with your social network and with anyone who might enjoy the story.

    https://avram.substack.com/p/the-flight-of-a-wild-duck-start-here

    Thank you.

  • The Decline and Ascension of Avram Miller

    My body is slowing down as my brain speeds up. It is quite a dilemma. It is understandable that my body would be slowing down. After all, I am 81 years old. But why is my brain speeding up? That is not to be expected. Now, I feel like I felt when I was an eight-year-old, reading a book a day as I consumed a library. Then I only had two things to stimulate my mind: books and, most importantly, my imagination. I learned by creating and by doing. I was destined to find my own way because I was incapable of following anyone else’s.

    Now, at this advanced age, I am still driven to learn and to create. Perhaps the advent of AI has set my brain once again on fire. But like my childhood when I was so ill that most of my days were spent in a bathrobe, my body cannot keep up with my brain.

    I have begun to feel tired. Not sleepy tired, but weary. While I am still strong, doing pilates and gym training four days a week, walking miles every day, and doing push-ups and planks at home, the physical energy that sustained me over all these years is dissipating. I am beginning to be at war with myself. My body wants to lie on the sofa passively, but my mind demands that I stand up and go to my computer. I still put in about 10 hours a day of what others might think of as work, but it is the struggle to do this that I am expressing, as well as the concern about how this situation will evolve.

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  • My recent interview with an Italian Journalist 

    L’INTERVISTA

    Avram Miller: “Da Intel Capital all’AI, la mia vita da agente del cambiamento”

    I had the pleasure of being interview recently by Luciana Maci of EconomyUP which is an Italian digital media outlet focused on innovation, startups, technology, and the transformation of business and society.

    The actual article in Italian can be found here.  

    Avram Miller: “Da Intel Capital all’AI, la mia vita da agente del cambiamento”

    When I said “pleasure” I really mean it.  I felt that Luciana actual got me in the way most business journalist do not.  This is what she so generously wrote on LinkedIn. 

    I am grateful for my work (which is also a bit of my passion) because sometimes it leads me to meet extraordinary people. It happened with Avram Miller, known in the world of large companies because, in the late 1980s, he gave life to the corporate venture capital of Intel Corporation. Said that way, it seems like something for insiders, but, believe me, Miller is much, much more: an American Jew who experienced firsthand the period of counterculture, met Janis Joplin and corresponded with Allen Ginsberg, never graduated but taught at a university. And again: a businessman, an investor, a scientist, a technology enthusiast. And again: a jazz pianist (this would have been enough to win all my esteem).

    Miller now lives in Lecce, he is 80 years old and yet he has the intellect, the enthusiasm and the desire to act like he is still a boy, so much so that he has a project to counter the demographic winter with the Italian Institute of Technology.

    What else to say? Read the interview, if you want, it’s my Christmas present for all those who have the kindness to follow me. Avram gave me the gift by giving me this interview.

    Avram Miller: “From Intel Capital to AI, My Life as a Change Agent”

    Interview by Luciana Maci – EconomyUp

    Complete verbatim English translation of the Italian article

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  • My First Speech in 27 Years — And Likely My Last



    A while back, I was invited to speak at an event connected to the World Business Forum conference in Milan which was sponsored by the Italian Institute of Technology. At the time, I was beginning a relationship with the organization. Having recently moved to Italy, I was looking for a way to stay connected to technology and to contribute to the country that had welcomed Deborah and me. I also wanted an identity here that wasn’t simply “some old wealthy retired American.” IIT offered a path toward that. Recently, IIT appointed me as the first Fellow, giving me an official role at this amazing institute.

    When I was asked to speak, I immediately said yes. I thought, mistakenly, that I would be speaking on the main World Business Forum stage. I didn’t realize the talk was for a special IIT event with only about a hundred participants. But honestly, I would have accepted even if I’d known.

    Still, when I later stood inside the enormous main hall, which seats 3,000 people, I felt a pang. That was the kind of room I used to speak in regularly, many times a year. I remember finishing talks and being swarmed by people offering business cards like I was some kind of rock star.

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  • The Glass Bead Game by Hermann Hesse and AI

    In 1963, I took a course on German literature at the University of California. We studied three authors: Thomas Mann, Franz Kafka, and Hermann Hesse. That course changed me. It opened a door into a world where intellect, creativity, sexuality, and even drugs intertwined. I still remember the Magic Theatre in San Francisco, where I took LSD for the first time. Later, wandering the streets of Prague where Kafka lived. But it was Hesse who stayed with me the longest. His writing spoke to something both disciplined and spiritual, intellectual and restless.

    Now, as I prepare for my keynote at the Edge2025 session of the World Business Forum in Milan, a question keeps circling in my mind: *What will we do when AI and its robot cousin do all the work?*

    That question brought me back to Hesse’s last and greatest book, “The Glass Bead Game.” Set in a future society called Castalia, it imagines a world where material struggle has vanished, replaced by a life devoted entirely to knowledge and culture. The most gifted minds play an intricate, almost sacred game that weaves together mathematics, music, philosophy, and science into elegant patterns of meaning. The story follows Joseph Knecht, who rises to become Magister Ludi, the game’s master, only to question the value of a life spent in pure contemplation.

    Hesse’s book is both a hymn to the power of the mind and a warning about the dangers of detachment. It asks whether intellect alone can sustain the human spirit. As AI begins to take over the burden of knowing and doing, we face the same question. What will fill the space that work once occupied?

    Perhaps, like Hesse’s players, we’ll turn to the deeper game—the one that connects knowledge, beauty, and imagination into meaning. I certainly hope so.

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  • Winding Down, Winding Up or Just Winding-The Next Ten Years of my Life 

    When I was diagnosed and treated for prostate cancer in 1996, I made a decision that changed my life forever. Prostate cancer is slow growing, and if the treatment did not work, I would still have at least ten more years to live. In my case, it appeared that the cancer had metastasized (it had not). So I decided to live my life as if I only had ten more years. This happened at a time when my friend, Dave Roux—who was then responsible for Corporate Development and M&A at Oracle and I were working together to create a leveraged buyout firm.

    Having made the decision to live as if I only had ten years, I realized I did not want to spend those years running a private equity firm, and I told that to Dave. He went on to create Silverlake, which became a very successful firm. In the process, he became a billionaire. I assume I would have as well. By the way, Dave is a really good person. His family foundation supports many important projects.

    I took a different path—one that I do not regret. It was no longer tied to any organization and not driven by financial concerns.

    I thought at the time that ten years was long enough to accomplish something like learning a new language, developing new skills, or having a deep and meaningful relationship—but short enough to feel some urgency. Thinking that you only have ten years to live could be considered pessimistic. But now, at the age of 80, I think it is an optimistic way to consider the future.

    I struggle with my age, and I have written about that in this blog. Sometimes I wake up in shock when I realize how old I have become. While about 60% of men live to 80, only about 10% are in excellent health (I appear to be one of those). Ten years later, only about 5% of men are still alive—and those who are, are overwhelmingly in poor health. 

    While I have a good chance of making it to 90, it is not just a question of life span. Health span is the critical question. While I wrote that I am in excellent health, I am starting to notice a decline in my hearing and sight. I wonder, are we as old as our oldest part? I hope not.

    We had left Israel just before October 7, 2023, on a combination vacation and business trip. Having already decided to move from Israel in 2025, we accelerated that decision. I loved living in Israel, but the Israel I had loved was no more. We needed to create a new life. 

    We ended up moving to Amsterdam, where I was engaged in work related to AI and cancer diagnosis. It felt like a rest stop in what had become a very confusing world—still in motion, but catching our breath. Eventually, we chose Italy. I had always said jokingly that in my next life, I’d come back as an Italian—and then I thought, why wait?

    But my 80th birthday weighed heavily on me. I struggled to imagine my future. We desperately wanted to settle into our own home. I missed my piano, which was still sitting in storage in San Francisco. The piano I had in Tel Aviv was sold with that house. We missed our art and the small things that my wife and I had collected over our years together.

    The question of how to use the ten years—likely the last ten years—came into sharper focus recently, as we made a major life decision: we would put down our roots in Italy.

    My anxiety about the future came to a head when we decided to buy a home in Lecce, Italy. I tried to imagine my life living in this city at this age and over the next ten years. It was then that I realized the decision to live as if I only had ten years was no longer a pessimistic view but an optimistic one, and I decided to embrace that optimism. We will live in Lecce in a beautiful palazzo in the heart of the historic center. Lecce is called the Florence of the South. It is a Baroque city located less than 30 minutes from amazing beaches on both the Adriatic and Ionian seas.

    It will be almost essential for me to learn Italian. I am struggling with that. This is the third language I’ve had to learn after English but I am committed to doing it.

    One reason to remain optimistic is the progress I expect we will see in health care because of AI. I am watching this closely and am personally involved in the field as an advisor to the Longevity Center at Sheba Hospital in Israel. I have started to get involved in longevity research in Italy as well. I still want to engage in creating the future and believe I have much to offer. I want not only to live longer and better—but to help others do that as well.

    So whether I am winding down, winding up, or just winding my way through this next chapter, I know one thing for certain: I’m still moving forward—with curiosity, with purpose,  hope and a song in my soul.