When I joined Texas Instruments in 1980 the company had its hands in everything. It was the world’s biggest semiconductor company. It employed the largest private navy on Earth for oil exploration. It made everything from guided missiles and minicomputers to calculators and digital watches. Eventually, TI’s leaders came to[…] Read On
Monthly Archives: January 2018
The Myth of ‘Make the World a Better Place’
I bet a lot of people watching CNBC yesterday cringed when virtual reality pioneer Jaron Lanier referenced the anti-vaccine movement that led to a resurgence in potentially deadly childhood diseases like measles and whooping cough. “Think about parents who worry about vaccines,” said Lanier. “I think vaccines are marvelous technology,[…] Read On
You Know Amazon’s Alexa Is Not a Real Person, Right?
CNBC had Jaron Lanier on this morning. Lanier is a virtual reality pioneer and one of the smartest guys in Silicon Valley. He writes incredibly insightful books like You Are Not a Gadget and Who Owns the Future? where he cautions about the impact of technology on our culture and[…] Read On
Getting Fired With Grace
The management consultant our chief executive had hired to restructure the company and deal with troublemakers like me walked into my office, shut the door behind him, and coldly said, “You may want to sit down.” That’s how the meeting began and my first job as an executive at a[…] Read On