The Wrath of Kahn
The, yeah, the the the app took a major step backwards when I upgraded it. And so now I'm in this, like, divot where I've got literally nothing to lose. So I'm just upgrading because as it appears. So This
Speaker 2:is this is, like, last week's, who knows why it shut down the whole, like, you know, the cave collapsed and we died.
Speaker 1:The cave collapsed and we died. And then also, I got kicked out early and then had to go back in.
Speaker 3:Hey hey, guys. I I actually looked into that. So apparently apparently, Twitter thought it lost Brian's connectivity and shut down because he was the host. I I suggested maybe they shouldn't do that when there's a co host.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Tom, thank you.
Speaker 2:Our man on the inside.
Speaker 1:Our man on the inside,
Speaker 4:I was gonna say. I hate
Speaker 3:I I was pretty annoyed when that happened too.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Alright. That well, great. That's thank you, Tom. That's that's terrific.
Speaker 1:Well and, Tom, I'm glad you're here because, alright. So I I wanna say how we got here. I am reading, Severo Ornstein's book, Computing in the Middle Ages, which is a kind of a tongue in cheek title. It's, like, not actually the Middle Ages, but the Middle Ages of Computing, a view from the trenches, 1955 to 1983. And I'm assuming you've not heard of or seen this book, Adam.
Speaker 2:Definitely not.
Speaker 1:Alright. So this book has all of the appearance of being self published. I'm not even sure when I got it. It's one of these books that I got at some point in time and somehow was, it wasn't one of the ones in the box, but it was the ones kinda dripping around unread. So, I picked it up and started reading it.
Speaker 1:It's it's looks self published, but it's better than that. It's actually pretty well written. There are a couple of, like, idiosyncrasies though. He spells role with a circumflex
Speaker 2:over the o. He spells what word are you saying?
Speaker 1:Roll. Like this is your roll.
Speaker 2:Like r o l e but with a circumflex over the o?
Speaker 1:I'm glad this actually is making me feel relieved that that I'm having to explain this 4 times implies that you have not actually seen
Speaker 2:this. No.
Speaker 1:Not at all.
Speaker 3:That's new for me too. I
Speaker 1:because this is this feels to me like one upping the New Yorker. I
Speaker 2:was gonna say this sounds like a New Yorker New Yorker, you know, co op. Coordinate. Exactly. Like, I've got it. It's not
Speaker 1:Come on. New Yorker. Coordinate. Like, just give it up. Give give up the oomlao on coordinate.
Speaker 1:But I'm not you I get it. I now kind of like, well, you know, now don't give it up. Now. I mean, now you've been here for so long. So the circumflex on o, I had not.
Speaker 1:And the circumflex denotes apparently I thought it was a dropped s, but apparently, it denotes a dropped consonant. So that is like I guess roll was spelled r o l l e. Well, thank God he put the CircaPlex on there to to differentiate from the original French.
Speaker 2:In, like, the 19 eighties? Like, when when when is this distinction so important that needs to be made?
Speaker 1:Or 16 eighties. So this book was actually written in 2002. But but it's good. I mean, it's like I said, it it it it's good. It's well written, which I feel is like it sent me to the dictionary a couple of times, which I always like.
Speaker 1:Have you no. This is not a scrabble word. We we and I both know. We can we can speak honestly here that your vocabulary is primarily centered around scrabble.
Speaker 2:Oh, primarily, but I know other words. Yes.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean? Okay. Badinage. You heard that word before? No.
Speaker 1:No. Badinage. Badinage. Which is like
Speaker 2:It's a great scrabble word, by the way.
Speaker 1:He said a good scrabble word.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah. It's a killer.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I guess it is because it's like that could be a whole rack and it's a bunch of consonants.
Speaker 2:Exactly. It's common letters. Yeah. Now I'm really up in my game.
Speaker 1:Right. Wow. Okay. So I this is news you can use then. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Sort of bad nudge, humorous, or witty conversations like, banter. I'm like, I'm like, why why I mean okay. Like, I feel like I engage in badnudge, and I have not known this word. But, like, at least I had the excuse of not really being a scrabble player. I feel you got, like, less than an excuse on this one.
Speaker 2:That's fair. Well, I am very poorly educated. So
Speaker 4:But you
Speaker 1:play a lot of Scrabble, though.
Speaker 4:That's on the other side of that. Right.
Speaker 1:Exactly. So anyway, good book. And this guy has had a really interesting life, actually. And I still live, but he's, so he, worked on the link, which I did not know anything. They worked on the TX 2.
Speaker 1:So this is like whirlwind era. This is super old machines, Adam. And so he's working on the, the TX 2 and the link, which was it really kind of the I would say, one of the first interactive computers, it feels like. Tom, is that a is that speaking fairly?
Speaker 4:The first personal computer for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I mean, that's kind of what they they they kinda call it the first personal computer. I I hesitate to quite call it a personal computer because the thing is gigantic. I mean, it's like refrigerators.
Speaker 4:It's not personal in the sense that you would like to put it in your living room, but personal in the sense that it was designed to be used by a single individual at one time.
Speaker 1:Oh, the right. Right. Which they call you know, they they kinda ultimately be calling, like, real time, and it's certainly interactive. Really interesting machine though, and I just didn't really know much about it. Wes Clark, I didn't know anything about, but really interesting, kind of the architect of that.
Speaker 1:Fascinating guy. He he died in 20 16. But the, and so he goes kinda all over the place. I mean, he is at the link, and then he kinda does some other stuff. And then he he ends up working at BBN on this bid for the for the ARPANET.
Speaker 1:So he ends up building the he's he works on the first team building the the AMP, the interface message processor. And then, actually, Tom, do you know him? Or is
Speaker 3:No. The name kinda rings a bell, but I don't know.
Speaker 1:And he's, you know, he's a he's a bit I mean, he's kind of like a generation and a half, maybe. I but I someone you may have had overlap with. But so the thing I that kinda latched onto that I thought was interesting was he he has his and do you mind if I read the lab?
Speaker 2:You should read
Speaker 1:that out. Yeah. It's a great quote. Alright. So before I leave the ARPANET and its offspring, the Internet, if you obliged to comment on what has happened in recent years to his paternity as its importance has become obvious to everyone, even to me.
Speaker 1:So called fathers, in quotes, have been cropping up all over the place. It's the same old story of the press identifying and select and celebrating certain individuals as the father of the Internet. Whereas in truth, the thing came about as a result of the convergence of numerous technical developments and the ideas and energies of a large number of individuals. For either the end result or the vision is absurd. Nonetheless, regrettably, a number of former colleagues, apparently, you know who you are, have allowed themselves to be singled out and celebrated as particularly important figures.
Speaker 1:Whereas others, probably even more central, who are by nature more reticent having received far less attention. And so I'm like, wait a minute. Who is he talking about? He's clearly got someone in mind. The so he clearly has got someone very explicitly in mind.
Speaker 1:And I I wondered if he had in my this is where and, Adam, I did tell you. I was gonna tell you my my Don Canute story. Yes. And, Dan, you're gonna have to forgive me to repeat because Dan actually heard this one heard this one recently as he was out here in California. So the I wondered if it was the same, Internet pioneer the Internet pioneer, punitive father of the Internet that I had run into.
Speaker 1:And I ran into this person at a one of these, you know, banquets with kind of various muckety mucks. Actually, Bridget was there with me. And
Speaker 2:Was this like an an ACM thing?
Speaker 1:Yeah. This was like it was a computer history thing. And I can't I mean, God only knows why I was I mean, whoever made the mistake of inviting me actually, I think that you know what? I this was through, I wanna say Bobby Johnson, who I think you you also know Bobby. Right?
Speaker 1:Adam from Facebook. And Bobby's been associated with the Computer History Museum. They'd asked, him to join either their I think it was, like, their youth advisory board even though Bobby and I were both, I think, in our late thirties at the time. But, Bobby's great. And I think he'd, gotten us with we went to this kind of this banquet with a bunch of, like, Kormato was there, which was great, accepting an award about project Mac, which was really interesting.
Speaker 1:But among the people that were there are Don Knuth. And I'm like, oh my god. You know, it's Don Knuth. And I, you know, I've not I had never met Knuth. And, and Richard was actually in encouraged me.
Speaker 1:He said, you know, you should go up and and talk to him because I in particular, what I wanted to talk with him about is, I have a copy of Don Knuth's senior thesis from his undergraduate, from Case. And did you know this, Adam?
Speaker 2:No. And so I mean, I'll I could defer, but I wanna know, you know, how you got that and who who So attic you ransacked.
Speaker 1:I know. Well, listen. No one as far as you know. Listen. It's all the the I I no.
Speaker 1:I I was just on I went through this period where and I know, Tom, you've gone through similar kind of phases where I I became concerned that we that history was being literally lost, that there was, like, manuals that were being documentation was being destroyed that we didn't have a way of recreating. This was kinda before we kinda scanned everything. Now I'm actually less concerned about that, and there's lots of great stuff in archives and so on. So but I went to this, like, this period in the, late nineties, early 2000, so I was concerned about this. So I was looking for, used books just to buy, like, old manuals in part just because they're you know, Tom also collects old manuals.
Speaker 1:They're really fun. And you also feel like you're you're preserving important history. And in doing that, I just ran across this copy of on 8 books of Don Canute's senior thesis. And I'm like, well, Jesus. I'm definitely buying this.
Speaker 1:And it is, like, mimeographed, but but stamped from case. And this is on soap 3, which was an optimizing assembler for the 650. So the 650 is a drum based machine. So the what super early computer. And do you know anything about these optimizing assemblers?
Speaker 1:I don't know.
Speaker 2:No. No. Not at all.
Speaker 1:Oh, these are amazing. So this is so the the drum based machines have what's called 1 plus 1 addressing where every instruction has the address. Every instruction has basically a a branch always. Every instruction has the the address of the next instruction to execute. And the reason you do that is because then you have an optimizing assembler, which figures out how long each instruction is going to take to execute and make sure that it organizes the drum such that when you go to execute that instruction, oh, lo and behold, it's the one that's be be be in the coming around the mountain here.
Speaker 1:And the story of Mel, the last real programmer, for those who read it. Right. On the on the Libra scope, the LGP 35 is a drum based machine, if that rings any bells. So, anyway, I've got this. So this and Knuth talks about this in his selected papers on computer science.
Speaker 1:He talks about his work on this op on optimizing a sub war. So I am I'm actually also just, like, curious about, like, how many people how many copies of this thing are there? I mean, not from a value perspective, but more just like it just I don't know. It just doesn't feel like there's that many copies, but, I mean, this guy's obviously gonna know.
Speaker 2:So So do do you lead with that? Be like, I'm just
Speaker 1:Of course. Oh, you I feel and I
Speaker 2:Feel free like Chris Farley, you know, hey, remember when you wrote your thesis?
Speaker 1:Oh, well, I it it it don't know. Exactly. Do you do you remember John Beck telling us about meeting Steve Young? No. So similar kind of story.
Speaker 1:A friend of ours who was in an airport, if you'll forgive the tangent on tangent. And and, like, Steve Young is is, like, waiting in baggage claim. And this is in San Francisco. So there is, like, a Steve Young, certainly not the greatest quarterback to play the game because because I'm from Denver. But but he would but but awfully good.
Speaker 1:Off there. Off there. Off there. I mean, they're definitely out there. So there's and there's this, like, 30 foot radius of of of a, you know, no man's land around Steve Young because everyone, like, is afraid to approach him, but no one wants to waste time, whatever.
Speaker 1:And everyone's trying to be respectful of the fact that, you know, this this is just a celebrity trying to, you know, get his facts. And similar situation in that, Peggy, John's wife was like, you gotta come on. Like, you're a huge Steve Young fan. Like, you gotta go say something. And so I don't know if you recall do you recall what he said to him?
Speaker 1:He said, you know, Art, weren't you in, I guess he had, like, a cameo in Superboy or something or, like, the the adventures of young super he had some cameo in some, like, super obscure thing that only a ridiculous super fan would know. He's like, do I recognize you from the adventures of Superboy? And Steve Young started laughing. And was it good, like yeah. Killer.
Speaker 1:Right? You know? Perfect. And then all of a sudden, you know, they're old friends, and it's the highlight of John's life. Okay.
Speaker 1:So I taking a page from this book, I am going to go this is my Steve Young moment with Don Knuth. I am very excited. But I obviously I'm also wanna be very respectful of and and I gotta say, Don Knuth, I I mean, I I'm not exaggerating. He's wearing, like, wizard's robes, I think.
Speaker 2:I choose to believe that.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Let's choose to believe that for the moment. I don't think I'm that far off. Mean, he definitely has got, like, a wizard like a get up that he's wearing. And, I mean, appropriately.
Speaker 1:Like, if we've got a modern merwin and Tim. Alright. So I, I'm like, hey. You know, I you know, professor Knuth, I I have a I have a copy of your undergraduate thesis from Case. And he looks at me kinda wide eyed.
Speaker 1:He says, how do you have a copy of that? And I explained how I got it. And I and I'm like, you know, but, you know, and I really enjoyed it. And I start to you know, asking him questions about the 6 50 and SOAP 3, this program he'd written, this symbolic optimizing assembler program with SOAP. And the highlight of my life is happening right now.
Speaker 1:Don Knuth is, like, is clearly taken with my interest in soap 3 and is beginning to tell me stories about the 6 50 at case in whatever it is, 1957 or whatever. And I'm like, this my life is a dream right now. Right? He gets, like, a paragraph in. No more than he he he gets, you know, maybe 15 seconds into this, into the highlight of my life.
Speaker 1:Went into this conversation crash lands Bob Kahn. Do you know what Bob Kahn is, Adam?
Speaker 2:I I do now that I've done a little research on some of his other shenanigans. Right.
Speaker 1:Bob Kahn shared the touring award with Vint Cerf. And he I it is like I am not it is like I am literally not there. He he I mean, I without exaggeration, crash lands into the conversation. Knuth recoil. I mean, if you have any mirror neurons whatsoever, you'd be thinking to yourself, this I this person was engaged in a much more interesting conversation than I'm about to inflict upon him.
Speaker 1:He just looks so uncomfortable. He said, well, how's it going? How's it going? And then and I I won't disclose exact details because they're definitely he asked him how you know, kind of, like, casual how's it going. Canute replies by disclosing a awkward health detail.
Speaker 1:And I'm like, what do I do? Like, am I I what's going on right now? Like, I don't even know what the protocol is. But then it's kinda clear to me that he's being very awkward about the way he lays this out there. And I'm thinking to myself, this guy is like a self defense mechanism.
Speaker 1:This guy is like, I'm gonna lay out this awkward personal detail to make you go away.
Speaker 2:I'm I'm just gonna poison pill this conversation.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna poison pill. That's exactly what it is. I'm gonna poison pill this conversation. And and Bob Kahn just does not see the stop stop sign at all and just drives right over it. And then Don Knuth runs away.
Speaker 1:I mean, like, one eighties and just hightails it. And I'm like, what the fuck just happened? I was having the best moment of my my life was reaching its apex. And now I'm sitting here and Khan is now staring awkwardly at me. And he looks down and reads my name tag, which reveals that I'm like nobody.
Speaker 2:That's that's your title on it. That's my title. Nobody in particular.
Speaker 1:And they they they actually give you a different color badge if you're nobody. So, you know, I got I'm wearing the the the the nobody color badge. And then he's, like, shrugs and walks off.
Speaker 2:Mission accomplished, Papa.
Speaker 1:Mission accomplished. Mission accomplished. I ruined this nobody's life. It's I'm done. And I'm like, what the fuck just happened?
Speaker 1:What the fuck just happened? So I then so when I'm reading this passage, I'm like, wait a minute. I know an Internet pioneer who I you know, I don't know that much about him, but I know he crashed the Internet conversation. I didn't like it very much. And sure enough, he is actually talking, I think, about several people, but I think he is definitely talking about Bob Kahn among them.
Speaker 1:I think that his view is that Bob Kahn and Larry Roberts and a couple of these other folks to a much to a degree, but lesser degree, Ben Serf. I think his knock on them, which I think is kinda interesting, is not that that, you know, these guys weren't central or didn't do a lot of work, but that just that they are allowing themselves to be singled out, which I thought was an interesting way of phrasing it.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And and, I mean, to your point in your tweet, like, something that we've seen. Right? Both on both sides of it. Both, you know, folks stepping into the spotlight and other folks allowing them or or stepping out of it.
Speaker 1:Yes. And I feel we have definitely seen this. And I think it's, part of the reason why it's incumbent upon those if like, first of all, like, we I and I I really love the way he phrased this about that, you know, there are a lot of factors that go into a technology being important. And it's it there are often a lot of people. There are a lot of factors outside of those people.
Speaker 1:And you really can't. It's irresponsible for single individuals to claim responsibility. But, Adam, you're making a very point about, like, the other problem is that when someone claims the spotlight, other people will recoil because they're introverted or whatever when they shouldn't. And and then you end up with this, like, well, now we got a situation where, you know, it's it kinda sucks, honestly, because it's it's it's unfortunate. I don't know.
Speaker 2:And so did you read, this this, oral history with Bob Taylor from the Computer History Museum?
Speaker 1:Yeah. I thought that yeah. What? Did you read that?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Well, I at least I read, I I think, the part about Bob Kahn. Can I can I read a little
Speaker 1:more of that? Yeah. Yeah. Please. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. Go for it.
Speaker 2:And there were probably 3 or 4 other chaps who were a member of Frank Hertz team. The most junior of which was Robert Kahn, Bob Kahn. Bob Kahn was a theoretician. The rest of the people were fundamentally systems people and this was a systems problem. The systems design was called for and the system had to be designed and built.
Speaker 2:So in system design meetings, Khan would be in attendance and he would ask question after question because he didn't understand what the rest of them were talking about much of the time. It wasn't his background. And they finally said, look, you're slowing us down, you know, just back off and we'll take care of it. Now the reason I mentioned this is because a few years later, Khan claimed, and he has claimed ever since, that he was responsible for the system design of ARPANET.
Speaker 3:Gorgeous.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And I think it gets like, I feel like it gets a little bit of the kind of the practitioner versus academic. The the I mean, it it does feel like, the the folks that were more systems minded were being I don't know. I mean, undermined or kind of forgotten. I don't know.
Speaker 1:So so, Tom, you're obviously a lot closer to all of this than than we were. I mean, what do you what do you what do
Speaker 4:you make of all of it?
Speaker 1:Tom is phoning Bob Kahn from another.
Speaker 4:Ryan, while Tom is doing his thing, I I I have my own little Don Canute story there. I forgot to tell you in your car last week. But a few years ago, I was at dinner in a restaurant in New York City, and I thought I saw Don Knuth eating dinner. And so I go up to this guy and and I, you know, say, excuse me, sir. I I you know, I'm very sorry to bother you, but are you by chance professor Knuth?
Speaker 4:And the guy turns to me, he's like, no. I'm his brother. And it turned out my god. Except except except the guy had he was just pulling a prank on me. He had no relationship whatsoever.
Speaker 1:Oh, exactly. He's just a random guy. That's pretty great.
Speaker 3:Am I am I back yet?
Speaker 1:You're back. Yeah. Hey, Tom.
Speaker 3:Weird things on my phone. Yeah. Anyways, I I don't meet surf or or con till late eighties, nineties, or whatever. But you then it seemed like Bob Kahn was far less of the technical guy than the other guys. So I don't know.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And I think that, again, I I'm not trying to undermine whatever. I mean, I think, you know, his contributions, I'm sure, are important. I think that the the thing I take issue with is, like, it's your responsibility if the spotlight happens to shine on you because people want an interview or what have you, I really do think it's your responsibility to pull other people in. And it's your responsibility to, like, actually make sure that anyone who's talking to you knows, hey.
Speaker 1:This is a team effort, and there were a bunch of people involved. And it definitely was not just me by a long shot.
Speaker 3:I I I I can tell you from personal experience that it it can be tiring when somebody decides to put you in the spotlight over and over and over again. You kinda get tired of saying the whole story.
Speaker 1:Oh, so, Tom, it I'll elaborate on that. But obviously, you've been in the spotlight a bunch for a bunch Yeah.
Speaker 3:Well, I've been in been the founder of several companies. Right? And so the marketing people are always trying to play me up as, oh, the father of whatever you've heard of that's cool recently. And, sure, I was involved with a lot of cool stuff, but so were so were other people.
Speaker 1:Well and I gotta say, Tom, I mean so, you know, I, so often in one's life, you kinda have these people that we make up to be kinda larger than life. And you, you know, they're they often can't live up to that. And it was I mean, you and I obviously didn't meet until, like, maybe what, 5 or 6 years ago. And, you know, I had always kind of known of you, and it was such a joy to meet someone who I mean, I feel like you've always had boots right on ground, and I've always been I I I have always had some earnest enthusiasm for the domain. And I think that, you know, you you're someone who I know that I I'm sure you've gotten very tired of the spotlight, but you have you've done very well by, to, by the small point.
Speaker 3:It's it's a balance too because, you know, I'm a I'm an old fart. I'm trying to stake my claim in history as well. So I I put myself out there, but I try not to be too egregious.
Speaker 1:I think it's fair to say that you're not too egregious.
Speaker 4:I think it for whatever it's worth.
Speaker 1:If you can, but then I thought that was a you know, it it actually it reminded me of that of reading Steve Jobs, the next big thing, talking about how, you know, at the sun just by its nature although far from perfect, I know that we mean certainly our thinking was that you were always on to something big when Bill Joy arrived to claim some degree of credit for it. I know I know
Speaker 2:you hope Bill is very hard with our
Speaker 1:top, but I think, I think he also did not hesitate to, so I mean, the Adam, when we kinda think about some of these, because I I feel that, like, the the lone inventor almost doesn't exist. I mean, I'm just thinking of, like, you know, for the the the innovations that are most important. I don't think that they've got single inventors really.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I think even, I mean, by their nature, they they can't have a single inventor. And then, you know, it's it's hard for like, you know, when someone is claiming credit for things, it's hard for other folks to to kinda call them on that. But it it's the narrative that people wanna tell. Right?
Speaker 2:It's the the the genius wunderkind that, you know, stories want to latch onto. It's simpler. It's it's more exciting, than, you know, the daily grind of lots of people involved. I mean, like the, you know, like Showstopper, the the story of of Windows NT. The you know, as much as Dave Cutler is lionized, it's also clear that, like, lots of people were involved.
Speaker 2:As opposed to Steve Jobs where you you think that he invented and and, made every decision on the product.
Speaker 1:Totally. And I was reminded of our discussion last week too with Les Davis being playing such an important role at Cray, but being very much, you know, not being in the spotlight. I mean, clearly, his name wasn't on the
Speaker 3:Well, the, the the story that popped to my mind when I saw your tweet was Alexander Graham Bell versus Elisha Gray and the whole race for the patent and all scuttlebutt about didn't Did Alexander Graham Bell bribe the patent attorney who was drunk at the time and all this kind of stuff?
Speaker 1:You know what? Tom, I don't feel I know very much about that that history.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So it's the whole thing about the telephone where the Alexander Graham Bell's patent came in a couple of hours before his rival, e Elisha Gray. And, there's just all kinds of, you know, theories that that didn't really happen that way and the the patent guy was paid off and all this kind of stuff.
Speaker 1:Interesting. Is it, and I'm certainly I mean, it does kind of have shades of of Edison as well. And I I have to say, when someone whenever someone is called the Thomas Edison of whatever, I'm often thinking to myself, like, yeah. They probably are the Thomas Edison. They are the ones that I'd like are claiming credit for the work of others that are putting themselves forward.
Speaker 1:No. I mean, they're not let's not call them the George Westinghouse, please. Let's make sure we call them the Thomas Edison, not the George Westinghouse.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So histories follow that kind of stuff, and, you know, these guys were kinda working alone but trying hard to steal each other's ideas.
Speaker 1:Well and I kinda feel like if you have when you have the situations where you have this, like, real race or real you know, the it's it's really confusing because you've got so many disparate groups that are working on something at the same time. I mean, can't you kinda make the argument that, like, maybe this was gonna this was going to happen anyway. I mean, that this is in in other words, like, the role of the individual is even less when you have these kind of rivals racing
Speaker 4:through that.
Speaker 3:Well, the other one kinda like that is the guy who claimed to invent an email. And it's like, well, maybe he did come up with it independently if he was living under a rock the whole time. But,
Speaker 4:he just found it.
Speaker 5:Yeah. But, yeah, that guy
Speaker 4:that guy is even worse. Yeah. Okay? Because I think that guy did you know, so he he he has some, like, office that's not far from where I live, and we have some friends who live out in Belmont, Massachusetts. And the way you drive out there from Cambridge, you're always passing his stupid bus.
Speaker 4:He has this, like, bus that says campaign tour bus because he keeps running for the US Senate. And all that guy did was he brought a program that he called email. Like, the name of the program was email. So he was like, yeah. I invented email.
Speaker 4:And it's like, well, okay. But as a proxy for electronic, you know, electronic mail,
Speaker 2:there's clearly fire on it.
Speaker 1:Yeah. You admitted email.com. You didn't have to admit.
Speaker 3:That's Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And, you know, and I also I I've also felt that, like, the, the people that I have known in my career that have been most, prolific and creative, I've also been the ones that have been, like, least likely to state their names to things. I mean, they just felt like you know what I mean? It feels like there's, like, a a sense that when, you know, people that that are so adamant about holding on to what they have done, like, maybe haven't done very much. I mean, or or or they're plagued with self doubt about their ability to do it or what their actual role truly was.
Speaker 1:I don't know if there's anything to that.
Speaker 2:No. I think you're right. I think that the the folks who who are prolific and are are creative don't need to kinda wait around the hoop and celebrate when the ball happens to go in. They know that they'll get lots of other shots, lots of other opportunities. I know we've we we lionized Jeff Bondic on this, on this space quite a bit, but I think, you know, from the slab allocator to ZFS and lots of stuff in between, he was never someone who I mean, he he he shared the spotlight, and sometimes too generously with folks who, who have contributed, you know, small amounts or large amounts.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I mean, I think sorry. Tom, go ahead.
Speaker 3:I was gonna say, my my own feeling is that, you know, there's some people like me where I can be the father of x y z technology, but the technologies don't really go very far without somebody who's parenting them, not just father.
Speaker 1:Right. Right. Right.
Speaker 3:And, so I have immense respect for, like, these people who stick with an open source project for 10 or 15 years to really mature it, because that's way beyond my focus time.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah. And I think it you you get the history of, like, Rust is really interesting because it I mean, there are important individuals in Rust, but it kind of defies it. You know? And and, I I think also, like, that's another one where I feel like Graydon kinda set the tone. Is that someone who is not going to, make it about himself.
Speaker 1:Maybe in contrast to some other programming languages.
Speaker 6:On on the other hand, I wanted to ask, are there any famous technologies that do have a sole inventor? Well, for example, when when I think about VI, the text editor, automatically, Bill Joy comes to my mind. Like, maybe in the beginning, he was, like, the sole person. Did are there any technologies that are famous for that?
Speaker 1:Okay. Yeah. That's interesting in terms of, like, where are the I mean, honestly, whenever my brain goes to things, it like, it's teams that pop into my head, not individuals, honestly. I mean, the incredible individuals that that that form an amazing team. But, Yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean, it's a good question. I don't know. Tom, Adam, what are what are your answers? Or other people?
Speaker 3:Oh, I think, you know, Bill Joy in particular, he was a prodigious coder back at Berkeley. So he he was the first guy on an awful lot of stuff, but it was still a a big team effort going on overall.
Speaker 1:Well and I think even, like I mean, someone like Andy Beckwithlott who's got so much energy and is such a such a talent. I mean, we we all know the folks that Andy Andy need there were a lot of folks that Andy needed around him to to bring this stuff to to fruition, and he was a collaborative in that way. Like, he didn't try to, you know so yeah. I don't know. Adam, what are your thoughts?
Speaker 2:Yeah. I don't know. I was thinking, you know, about my personal experience with folks. Because obviously, like, from the outside, you see folks taking credit or not taking credit and and it's hard to discern. But I think I've been fortunate in my career to to mostly see credit where credit was due, certainly on on the things that I worked in and around.
Speaker 2:And only in rare cases, were there sort of these free electrons ready to, you know, grab on to some new technology and put themselves at the at the front of it and claim credit for it. And I think in those cases, as, you know, the small number of cases have been disappointed when the the folks who did a lot more weren't more vocal or weren't more didn't agitate harder to get the record straight.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And you get that you get kinda get that sense that I that, Ornstein kinda feels that way of, like, hey. Other folks, you need to, like, advocate for yourselves a little bit more because you're being you're you're being railroaded by people who will claim this stuff, which is, I also think internally, because I'm thinking about it. I mean, I I also just think, again, in in reflecting on my own personal history, but also looking at a lot of other technologies too. There I I really am a a deep believer that when you get a group of people together, something happens that's beyond the sum of the parts.
Speaker 1:And where at once, every individual is critical and load bearing, and yet it's also something beyond the individual. I mean, I I really think that we need to be thinking more in terms of teams. I actually think so here's a kind of an interesting question to to throw out. I think that these the these, distinguished awards, you know, the ACM award, touring awards, or what have you, I I don't think they're they're a great idea. I actually think that they don't really I I I wish there were a different way that we could maybe talk about some of the the breakthroughs without lionizing individuals.
Speaker 2:Maybe by focusing more on the individual, I don't know, the individual breakthroughs rather than the person who sits at the top of an ostensibly large pile of those breakthroughs?
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. I would rather talk about the innovation than the individual. I don't think it's necessary to, and and I think that, you know, when and especially now, I mean, I think it would it was and I don't know, Tom, what your take is on this. I mean, certainly, there were folks early in computing that obviously played foundational roles, and you wanna kind of you wanna recognize those folks.
Speaker 1:But it you know, I'm finding that every year they announce that you were your work, I'm just angry. And that's, like, that's not good.
Speaker 7:Like, it's just The science world seems, seems to do this quite well. I mean, there's a lot of broken things in the in the way that science works. But if you look at, like, a, like, a paper about, I don't know, gravitational waves, you know, the detecting a collapse of a, you know, a neutron star or something like that. And, you know, it's these people who have these gravitational wave detectors. I mean, those papers have, like, I don't know, 300 authors on them.
Speaker 7:And some of it's back scratching, but, you know, it's it's like in physics, you know, great inventions basically haven't been an individual activity for a few 100 years. You know, it's team science. And it's interesting that,
Speaker 2:you know, we brought up,
Speaker 7:Bertie because that's that's been, like, their thing. Like, Ernest Lawrence was, yeah, we can't really do physics unless we build big teams, which include engineers that know how to build these machines to do science.
Speaker 3:On the other hand, there's there's still a fair amount of academic abuse from Yeah.
Speaker 4:I was about to say. I mean
Speaker 3:Names, everything.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Science says this very well. Just ask Rosalind Franklin. No. But you yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean, so I mean, you're honestly you're right in terms of, like, the what in terms of, like, having big teams of folks on, but then, of course, you could hint like, then the order of the authors becomes relevant at that.
Speaker 7:Oh, yeah. At least there's pathologies there. Totally, totally agree.
Speaker 1:You know, Brian?
Speaker 2:Brian, this this conversation is I don't know if you listened to this, but the Computer History Museum inducted Andy Van Dam, a a former professor of mine, and I assume of yours as well.
Speaker 1:Actually, not of mine, but
Speaker 4:Oh, really? Okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I've got to follow
Speaker 4:it up there for the course of
Speaker 2:Yeah. But but, you know, you know, basically, legend so legend of Brown University, computer graphics was the first to develop hyper text and, did lots of work in computer graphics, textbooks and education and stuff like that. And his so on one hand, I hear you on the not lionizing individuals. On the others, you know, Andy is a lion and, he spent the full program kind of talk talking about all the people who had contributed to all the different things that he had worked on. And so and someone who aggressively shared credit and, and, and has, has throughout his career kind of tried to help and prop up folks who had contributed positively around him.
Speaker 1:So Yeah. No. No. You you are absolutely right. And then that struck me too in his oral history that he did, which I think you pointed me to the oral history he did the Computer History Museum.
Speaker 1:And I thought it was outstanding. And, you know, you're exactly right, actually. And that he he aggressively and he reminds me of so Ron Minnick does this. I I mean, Ron is like, if you talk to Ron about anything he's done, he will, in the in the next sentence, tell you the 3 people that worked on it with him. And, you know, I think that that speaks so highly of him.
Speaker 1:And, I mean, I think, like, that that it is a level which, like, that is a kind of a greatness where you are again, you're you you take it as your responsibility to make sure that that other people are getting credit for the work that they've done.
Speaker 2:And and the kind of greatness that everyone wants to work around. Right? Like, what do people know about work what it was like to work with Steve Jobs?
Speaker 4:That it would that it sucks. Right.
Speaker 2:And that you were a nobody with a nobody badge on. Right? But but, you know, working with Andy or or Ron or or some of these other greats, you know that your work is gonna be appreciated and shared.
Speaker 8:Another, another person I I can think of who has been at least somewhat mythologized is a sole inventor, who has been is very openly given credit to his sorry. Sorry, very openly giving credit to both his predecessors and his contemporaries is, Dennis Clatt, the inventor of DECtalk. He so, by the way, he he he died fairly young. He so that as you guys might recall, DECtalk came out in 1984. He
Speaker 1:Yeah. DECtalk was amazing. We stood for Yeah.
Speaker 8:Dennis Clatt died in 1988 at age 50.
Speaker 1:Oh, man.
Speaker 8:But, a couple years before he died, he compiled this collection of of milestones in the history of speech synthesis going back to the 19 fifties. And and you can you can just see all of the, you know, the shoulders of the giants that he stood on as well as the and, of course, it it wasn't it wasn't like he presented DECtalk as the final culmination of everything. He he was also showing other he also showed other things that were going on at the same time, including research into other methods of, of speech synthesis, other than the one you know, other than what he ended up using.
Speaker 1:So So what that's interesting, and it kind of dovetails in with a with an observation that, certainly, I have made in the open source communities, and that is, like, the open hardware communities tend to be really welcoming, actually. And tend I I've just noticed that, like, hardware is so hard that it's you you have to be collaborative in recognizing of the effort that other peoples have other people have made. I wonder if there's, because I mean, DECtalk, this was primarily does it I mean, this is a hardware device that you developed.
Speaker 8:Well, I mean, DECtalk was, as I understand it, c code running on a, running on a an early, running on one of the early 32 bit microprocessors. I I think it I think the original DECtalk was using a 68,000 processor. So but so, yeah, it it it was software, but, of course, a lot a lot of his, a lot of the earlier researchers in speech synthesis, were working on hardware.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Interesting. We and I mean, it's kinda interesting to kinda take that lens through history of, you know, who are the people that have done a a good job either in in his case where you're alone better, but but but putting himself in historical context. Or Adam, in this case, like with Andy, someone who has been so generous with making sure that they were that they were kind of uplifting a team that they attract great people around them.
Speaker 8:Yeah. Interesting interestingly though, I Dennis the the
Speaker 1:but I actually wonder you know, Adam, you were reading earlier from from Bob Taylor's, oral history. And I get the sense that because, Tom, did you know I mean, did you know Bob Taylor was the, I guess, the director of PARC, kind of the director of PARC? I guess he there it's certainly at Xerox park, but I gather he was a a pretty popular leader there.
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah. I I I don't think I ever met him, but people loved yeah. He was awesome at recruiting, which is a big reason why Park succeeded. And he had a lot to do with the early Internet as well.
Speaker 8:Now maybe maybe you guys have already gone, yeah, gone down this road while I was trying to figure out how to rejoin the space on my phone. But, since you mentioned Bob Taylor, I wonder if, Alan Kaye
Speaker 1:is
Speaker 8:is it would would qualify as one of these, people that that perhaps get too much credit as a as a sole inventor.
Speaker 1:I mean, certainly someone who does not hesitate to to take it. And I think that and, I mean, clearly, like, Kaye's had enormous contributions to the field. But I I mean, there was a I think in that same Bob Taylor interview, if I'm recalling correctly, Adam, he also does talk about, like, look at look. Put Dynabook in context here. And, yes, it's important, but there were a lot of other things happening at the same time.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I think that kinda the opposite of Alan Kaye is probably Doug Doug Engelbart who did all this stuff, but really wasn't known for it for many years afterwards.
Speaker 8:Oh, I think Doug, eventually got his due. I mean, yeah, chapter 2 of Stephen Levy's, insanely great about the Macintosh was, largely about Doug's work.
Speaker 1:And Doug had a brother too. Right, Tom? The, the, I thought he just came across his brother. Am I alright. I'm gonna go look this up.
Speaker 3:Yes, please.
Speaker 5:I have a quick question on, and then maybe some context. So a guy like Michael Stonebraker, who provide us the series of database invention, I think he's an ACM Turing award winner. Obviously, did this in the context of teams. And I don't think it's about people as much as recognizing, you know, the capabilities and and potential of teams. And he was a serial entrepreneur as well.
Speaker 5:What do you guys think about the long term? Like, now days, if you were to look at any new technology breakthrough, it's all done in massive groups, but you don't think about you still you still sort of recognize that either company or the individual leader who who who led the charge. And so I think Stonebreakers of this mold, he's had multiple successful commercial companies. He'd you know, I think he was one of the postgres guys. And now nowadays, database companies are more always building on the shoulder of giants, but there's still usually some some architect or visionary that takes it forward.
Speaker 3:You know, I I think that's valid. I mean, venture capitalists are always looking for the the entrepreneur. You know, they got the person who's gonna lead the charge even if even if they everyone knows it's a huge team effort.
Speaker 5:And so, I guess, where what's the risk in recognizing those people? Is it to essentially always, as we do as a culture, make it seem like that's that's a individual's effort as opposed to a team effort.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And I I it makes them not opposed to recognize the individual. I just like you just wanna make sure and I think that the the people that are actually swinging the hammer and and bringing this thing to fruition, are recognized as being critical. I mean, it's like Stonebreakers, you know, obviously great and has had a lot of important contributions. But as you say, he's had a lot of people around him bringing these these things to fruition.
Speaker 1:I also think that, like, when these technologies continue to advance, I it it bothers me a little bit when people leave a technology and then kinda continue to claim credit for its success. I mean, Tom, you're talking about the difference between kinda like paternity and parenting. And and it's and I I I do think that it's like I mean, honestly, like, that is the one of the things that had rubbed me the wrong way about Bill Joy is that I do feel that, like, you you can't continue to claim credit for something that you're no longer involved in. You've gotta, like you you gotta give make sure that you are giving credit to those folks that are actually solving the kind of the the the thankless problems. Well, the the problems that are gritty, that are the actually, honestly, just as hard, the oftentimes harder than some of those early problems, but they're a lot less glamorous.
Speaker 1:And the there's a lot of value in solving those problems. So I I think
Speaker 3:we we we had a phrase in the early days of Sun, you know, build joy complete. It it meant that it would almost compile.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And I you mean, I I also, like I have a hard time with and maybe I just, like, suffer from abandonment issues. I have a hard time with people that walk away from things. I have a hard time with and or maybe I'm just, like, a dead end or maybe this is just, like, my own character flaw. But I am to me, it's really important to see things all the way through to their their total completion.
Speaker 1:And I think that if you walk away before that completion, it's too easy to dismiss the heavy work that was involved in that, you you know, the last 10%. That's actually the last 90%.
Speaker 3:See, I I I I always had this thing of once once I saw there was a huge team of competent people, I was like, wow, this this is covered. I'm gonna go work on something that that no one's
Speaker 1:Yeah. That's fair. In terms of you're like, hey. Well, now I've I've done my job and I've got a bunch of great folks in here and now it's yeah. No.
Speaker 1:I understand that too.
Speaker 2:And and maybe it's not problematic, you know, as such to recognize the individual because that is the story that that folks want to tell that's easy to tell. But it's it's really important to make sure that that that individual here who you're recognizing is at least in the top 1 or 2 or whatever, 3, you know, that you haven't missed the mark completely. And then, you know, I think the individuals who we respect the most or I respect the most in those are the ones who then when the spotlight is on them, take that moment, not to further themselves, but to further those teams.
Speaker 1:Exactly. Yeah. I think that that's exactly it. And that's where you rake it to, like, the the responsibility of that spotlight having fallen upon you is to make sure that it's being BCH, I see you getting in here.
Speaker 9:Yeah. Well, it sounds like there's 2 classes of stories. Right? 1, like, back to the stone breaker, for example. That's kind of a communications problem.
Speaker 9:Right? Where you if you want one guy, if you're talking about VCs or whatever or publishing a story, it's you can't have 8 guys to do a communications, effort and have it be coherent, but, separate from that. And it doesn't incentivize doling out credit, but the the a lot of the most interesting things that I, kinda get into when you're tracing chasing tech stories down is the other credits. And it's kinda like having a good album and seeing, well, who's the drummer on this, and what else did they work on? Or who produced other people to give credit, but it sure is nice to see for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I I and I love your, your tremor metaphor. And so you would really like this book by Ornstein, by the way, because he's very I mean, there's just he's very, there's so many characters that kinda come into his life and his experience that he's always, you you would enjoy, well, kind of following up on all of them, because I think there's a lot of interesting people that I didn't know about, that was fun to learn about. So yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, when we think about green credit, I was thinking about some examples from from our history. You know, we think about DTrace and we certainly did a lot of work to like, you know, write a bunch of the code, and there are obviously others involved. But then, you know, like Brendan and Greg write this whole toolkit and, O'Reilly book on it. And that helped tremendously. You know, then I, then I think about the folks still working on pieces of it that that, you know, I I certainly haven't been contributing for for kind of a while and really appreciate that folks are still keeping the lights on.
Speaker 2:And then, you know, look at, another technology that we worked in around, like, CFS where Jeff Bond would this great idea in probably, you know, 95, 96, 97, something like that. And and Matt Aaron's 20 years later is still working on that technology.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Which is I mean and I and I think that, you know, we'd always felt I I think you and I had both had felt that, you know, Matt is an unassuming person, and, yeah, it can be kinda happy if other people are stepping in on into the spotlight. I know you and I had always felt that, like, he wasn't getting really his due. And, honestly, it's been it's been kinda nice to see in the last 4 5 years where I feel like Matt really has been at the epicenter of ZFS, which is where, certainly he belongs as far as you and I are concerned.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I mean I mean, get again, just the the longevity of work that he's put into that project and making it success and getting in lots of different platforms. Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Well, and this is kind of like the this is the neat thing about software too and the ability to have a to to be working on a single body of software for a very long period of time. I mean, I I put great weight on that. I mean, I know it's not, Thomas, you're saying. It's kinda not for everybody, but, I I that also, to me, is is there's something special about that, which you don't always see. You often get get folks who are are kind of, like, kinda 1 and done done on a body of software.
Speaker 1:So I have, just to give people the 7 minute warning, I have, Adam, I wanna be make sure we're much more mindful of your of your evening largely because I'm afraid of your son. I I That's fair.
Speaker 2:That's fair. You and me both? Yeah.
Speaker 1:Exactly. That's right. We we so we, I know I saw, Matt, you were getting in here. Right? Other folks that wanna get in here.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I just wanted
Speaker 4:to bring up because no one's brought it up
Speaker 10:so far this evening, and I'm surprised by it. The Dream Machine, the book about JCR Licklitter. He was kind of weaving his story kind of weaves through a bunch of the a bunch of the different sort of plots that we've talked about this evening.
Speaker 1:Yeah. It's it's a fascinating bit. Yeah. If you read it, I mean, it's it's actually it's on my, like, literal physical Oh
Speaker 10:my god. It's a fantastic it's one of the best it's one of the best technology books I've read in years.
Speaker 3:Yeah. It's official. Like a look.
Speaker 10:But one of the things that I think really stuck out about it was, like, the difference between making teams or building teams, I guess, back in those days because there was it was basically just all ARPA money. Right? And it was it wasn't even so much making teams as it almost was king making. Right? Because you had, like, that was the budget for technology in the country to a very large extent.
Speaker 10:Right? So whatever, you know, whatever whatever projects and budgets flowed out of ARPA really, you know what I mean, kind of drove the narrative of where things were going.
Speaker 1:Right. So it's, you know,
Speaker 10:I wonder if that, like, the, like, you know, the the teams that were successful were kind of self selected as the ones that kind of got funding,
Speaker 1:you know, and it had, you know, a leg up from that. Interesting. Yeah. I mean, it was a that you right. It was a very different way of kinda deciding who and what was successful, right, in terms of you had, based on it was it's the it's ARPA making those decisions instead of Yeah.
Speaker 1:The the market or universities or, I you know, I'm not sure who the kingmakers are today.
Speaker 10:And that was it was really neat. Like, like, if you when it the the the story that the book tells essentially starts off with them just having infinity money and just throwing a 1,000,000 things at the wall. And then I can't remember the name that the the term that they come up with, but when they the Pentagon finally started asking them to actually, you know, have some tangible results, I think it was battlefield readiness or something like that was the the the watchword. And then so all of a sudden, all of the projects kind of pivoted towards that, and everyone was trying to do things like language recognition or, you know, computer graphics or any of these things. And, you know, just trying to throw a a battlefield readiness spin on it, you know, because the money was just so damn important for
Speaker 1:them. Yeah. And it is I mean, especially when you look at some of those, the term sheets. Like, you look at the original deck term sheet, you realize that private financing really was not a viable route. It was, you know, we as easy as it is to derive venture capital, I'm very grateful for it.
Speaker 1:Not only I mean, it puts meals on on all of our tables, but it's been a honestly, a very important development is to get us out from underneath a defense money and be able to turn to to private money in some regard. Of course, there's a lot of minuses. But
Speaker 3:I think computer science departments really benefited from DARPA or ARPA or whatever it was.
Speaker 10:It definitely changes the dynamics of success. Right? It becomes less of a precondition and more of a nice to have.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And I think it's, you know, it's kind of interesting, like, with the funding models you you do kinda want a hybrid funding models. You know, there are I mean, I heard about you. Strict defense funding clearly has its own. And, actually, you know, the, takes us on very head on because the Vietnam war is happening and he's got very obviously, easy or obviously, but he's ardently against the war, and he's having very mixed feelings about, taking defense money for ARPANET even though it feels like ARPANET is pretty far removed.
Speaker 1:So there are clearly some issues there, and then there are some challenges when your funding sources are clearly strictly private and strictly academic. And I think all these funding sources have have different strengths and weaknesses.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And then you're a venture capitalist, sort of tacking into the the narrative of the hero inventor and the hero entrepreneur. So maybe bend bending things, or or people's willingness to share credit in the light in the thought of, you know, getting the
Speaker 1:next round of funding
Speaker 2:or starting the next
Speaker 1:care about is the success of the business, fortunately. It seems to just does seem to trump everything else.
Speaker 2:That's absolutely true. But how many times have you heard, of some, you know, someone who was at the front of the marching band but heard actually it was their number 2 who did the work. Totally. And and the number 1 is getting funded for their second or or their third company. But, but you know, if they don't bring this guy with them then then they're kinda sunk.
Speaker 1:Totally. And I think so often, they I mean, this definitely has happened where, you know, you'll have someone who you know, like, this is a clutch, clutch, clutch clutch higher. And it's someone that, like, you know, VC will talk to you like, okay. Like, I guess. Sure.
Speaker 1:Like, really? Yes. Really. Trust me. Like, I get it.
Speaker 1:Like, they're not the person that you're gonna necessarily, you know, pitch to an investor. But when it comes time, but pitching to to investors and actually swinging the hammer and solving hard problems in the trenches that are not the same skill set. And, yeah, you have people that are that are extremely important, but deeply underappreciated, just because of, slight personality differences really.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Alright. Adam, we're gonna get you out of here on time.
Speaker 2:How about that? Andy, right on the button?
Speaker 4:Right on the button. Yes. So hopefully,
Speaker 1:I'm gonna claw back some, again, I'm really I actually don't know if I'm in more trouble with Josh or or or Melissa, but, you know, I just really wanna make sure that I get in everybody's good graces.
Speaker 2:No. It's great. The the these have been great, and, I I I'm all for letting the conversations go as far as I need to go. So, Alright.
Speaker 4:Few. Well, thanks everybody. You need to I some
Speaker 1:great book recommendations. I actually I I need to get the, the dream machine. I think it's gotta climb up the queue here.
Speaker 2:It looks like a great one. Thanks, everyone.
Speaker 1:Alright. Thanks, everyone.
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