Category: Entrepreneurship

CEO Ackerman Sold Corning’s Cookware to Focus on Fiber Optics

(p. A8) When Roger Ackerman was named chairman and chief executive of Corning Inc. in 1996, the company depicted him as a technologically savvy leader who would guide the company into the internet age.

“I’m absolutely ready to take over at Corning, and have no fear or trepidation,” he told The Wall Street Journal.

Mr. Ackerman sold Corning’s housewares division, featuring cookware and such brands as Pyrex, to focus on making optical fibers, liquid-crystal-display glass and other high-tech marvels. Optical fibers were in hot demand as telecom companies rushed to lace the globe with voice and data networks.

For the full obituary, see:

James R. Hagerty. “Corning CEO Put Focus on Technology.” The Wall Street Journal (Saturday, Aug. 20, 2022): A8.

(Note: the online version of the obituary has the date August 18, 2022, and has the title “Corning CEO Shifted Focus From Cookware to Photonics.”)

Wolfspeed Startup Survived Because “We Were Small, We Were Nimble, We Were Crazy”

(p. A12) As a graduate student in materials science in the early 1980s, John Palmour took a chance on an unproven way to make semiconductors, substituting silicon carbide for the usual pure silicon.

. . .

In 1987, Dr. Palmour and other researchers at NC State were among the co-founders of Cree Research, now known as Wolfspeed Inc.

. . .

In a sign of the technology’s strategic importance, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. in 2017 blocked the sale of a large part of the company to Infineon Technologies AG of Germany.

As Wolfspeed flourished over the past five years, Dr. Palmour remained chief technology officer, even while being treated for lymphoma.

. . .

Frugality was a helpful trait at a tech company that was slow to blossom. Wolfspeed was able to keep going because “we were small, we were nimble, we were crazy,” Dr. Edmond said.

. . .

Of his early days as an entrepreneur, Dr. Palmour wrote: “We were full of big plans and high hopes, but we were too young and stupid to know how hard it was going to be, how long it would take, or if it was even possible.”

For the full obituary, see:

James R. Hagerty. “Scientist Changed Recipe For Making Microchips.” The Wall Street Journal (Saturday, Dec. 3, 2022): A12.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the obituary has the date December 2, 2022, and has the title “John Palmour Changed Recipe for Making Microchips.”)

“I Do What I Want; You Don’t Like It, Don’t Buy It”

(p. 27) Terry Castro, a New York-based jewelry designer whose knack for blending the fantastical with the elegant propelled him from selling on the sidewalks of New York to adorning celebrities like Rihanna and Steven Tyler, died on July 18 [2022] at his home in Istanbul.

. . .

Mr. Castro, who worked under the single name Castro, considered himself a “creator of dreams.”

. . .

Passionate and at times confrontational, Mr. Castro considered himself a rebel within the industry.

“I do what I want; you don’t like it, don’t buy it,” he said in a 2012 interview with The Black Nouveau, a style blog. Recounting his scattered efforts to “go commercial,” he concluded that the income was not worth the creative price paid.

For the full obituary, see:

Alex Williams. “Terry Castro, 50, Rebel Who Created Exquisite Jewelry.” The New York Times, First Section (Sunday, August 7, 2022): 27.

(Note: ellipses, and bracketed year, added.)

(Note: the online version of the obituary has the date Aug. 4, 2022, and has the title “Terry Castro, a Proud Outsider in the Jewelry World, Dies at 50.”)

“Adding Manpower to a Late Software Project Makes It Later”

(p. 24) Dr. Brooks had a wide-ranging career that included creating the computer science department at the University of North Carolina and leading influential research in computer graphics and virtual reality.

But he is best known for being one of the technical leaders of IBM’s 360 computer project in the 1960s.

. . .

Until the 360, each model of computer had its own bespoke hardware design. That required engineers to overhaul their software programs to run on every new machine that was introduced.

But IBM promised to eliminate that costly, repetitive labor with an approach championed by Dr. Brooks, a young engineering star at the company, and a few colleagues. In April 1964, IBM announced the 360 as a family of six compatible computers. Programs written for one 360 model could run on the others, without the need to rewrite software, as customers moved from smaller to larger computers.

. . .

The hard-earned lessons he learned from grappling with the OS/360 software became grist for his book “The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering.” First published in 1975, it became recognized as a quirky classic, selling briskly year after year and routinely cited as gospel by computer scientists.

The tone is witty and self-deprecating, with pithy quotes from Shakespeare and Sophocles and chapter titles like “Ten Pounds in a Five-Pound Sack” and “Hatching a Catastrophe.” There are practical tips along the way. For example: Organize engineers on big software projects into small groups, which Dr. Brooks called “surgical teams.”

The most well known of his principles was what he called Brooks’s law: “Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later.”

Dr. Brooks himself acknowledged that with the “law” he was “oversimplifying outrageously.” But he was exaggerating to make a point: It is often smarter to rethink things, he suggested, than to add more people. And in software engineering, a profession with elements of artistry and creativity, workers are not interchangeable units of labor.

In the internet era, some software developers have suggested that Brooks’s law no longer applies. Large open-source software projects — so named because the underlying “source” code is open for all to see — have armies of internet-connected engineers to spot flaws in code and recommend fixes. Still, even open-source projects are typically governed by a small group of individuals, more surgical team than the wisdom of the crowd.

For the full obituary, see:

Steve Lohr. “Frederick P. Brooks Jr., an Innovator of Computer Design, Dies at 91.” The New York Times, First Section (Sunday, November 27, 2022): 24.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the obituary was updated Nov. 25, 2022, and has the title “Frederick P. Brooks Jr., Computer Design Innovator, Dies at 91.”)

The Brooks’s book mentioned above is:

Brooks, Frederick P., Jr. The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering. 2nd ed. Boston, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1995.

Cancer “Vaccines Are Probably the Next Big Thing”

(p. A5) “Vaccines are probably the next big thing” in the quest to reduce cancer deaths, said Dr. Steve Lipkin, a medical geneticist at New York’s Weill Cornell Medicine, who is leading one effort funded by the National Cancer Institute. “We’re dedicating our lives to that.”

For the full story, see:

ARLA K. JOHNSON, Associated Press. “Vaccine Against Cancer Could Be Closer Than Ever.” Omaha World-Herald (Sunday, July 9, 2023): A11.

(Note: bracketed date added.)

(Note: the online version of the story was updated Nov 2, 2023, and has the title “The next big advance in cancer treatment could be a vaccine.”)

Biden’s Centrally Planned Cancer “Moonshot” Funds Surgery as Key to a Cure

(p. A5) WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden’s administration on Thursday [July 27, 2023] announced the first cancer-focused initiative under its advanced health research agency, aiming to help doctors more easily distinguish between cancerous cells and healthy tissue during surgery and improve outcomes for patients.

The administration’s Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, or ARPA-H, is launching a Precision Surgical Interventions program, seeking ideas from the public and private sectors to explore how to dramatically improve cancer outcomes in the coming decades by developing better surgical interventions to treat the disease.

. . .

The initiative could markedly improve cancer treatments and make scientific breakthroughs that have as yet unknown applications, said Arati Prabhakar, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology.

“What’s true is that many cancer treatments still start with surgery,” she told The Associated Press in an interview. “So being really smart and attacking and developing new technology to make that first step better could really revolutionize how we are able to treat cancer for so many Americans.”

For the full story, see:

ZEKE MILLER Associated Press. “Cancer Research Initiative Part of Biden ‘Moonshot’.” Omaha World-Herald (Friday, July 28, 2023): A5.

(Note: ellipsis, and bracketed date, added.)

(Note: the online version of the story was updated Nov. 2, 2023, and has the title “Biden announces an advanced cancer research initiative as part of his ‘moonshot’ effort.”)

Philosopher MacAskill’s “Effective Altruism” Was Neither Effective Nor Altruistic

(p. B1) In short order, the extraordinary collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX has vaporized billions of dollars of customer deposits, prompted investigations by law enforcement and destroyed the fortune and reputation of the company’s founder and chief executive, Sam Bankman-Fried.

It has also dealt a significant blow to the corner of philanthropy known as effective altruism, a philosophy that advocates applying data and evidence to doing the most good for the many and that is deeply tied to Mr. Bankman-Fried, one of its leading proponents and donors. Now nonprofits are scrambling to replace millions in grant commitments from Mr. Bankman-Fried’s charitable vehicles, and members of the effective altruism community are asking themselves whether they might have helped burnish his reputation.

“Sam and FTX had a lot of good will — and some of that good will was the result of association with ideas I have spent my career promoting,” the philosopher William MacAskill, a founder of the effective altruism movement who has known Mr. Bankman-Fried since the FTX founder was an undergraduate at M.I.T., wrote on Twitter on Friday (Nov. 11, 2022). “If that good will laundered fraud, I am ashamed.”

Mr. MacAskill was one of five people from the charitable vehicle known as the FTX Future Fund who jointly announced their resignation on Thursday (Nov. 10, 2022).

. . .

(p. B5) Benjamin Soskis, senior research associate in the Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy at the Urban Institute, said that the issues raised by Mr. Bankman-Fried’s reversal of fortune acted as a “distorted fun-house mirror of a lot of the problems with contemporary philanthropy,” in which very young donors control increasingly enormous fortunes.

. . .

Mr. Bankman-Fried’s fall from grace may have cost effective-altruist causes billions of dollars in future donations.  . . .

His connection to the movement in fact predates the vast fortune he won and lost in the cryptocurrency field. Over lunch a decade ago while he was still in college, Mr. Bankman-Fried told Mr. MacAskill, the philosopher, that he wanted to work on animal-welfare issues. Mr. MacAskill suggested the young man could do more good earning large sums of money and donating the bulk of it to good causes instead.

. . .

A significant share of the grants went to groups focused on building the effective altruist movement rather than organizations working directly on its causes. Many of those groups had ties to Mr. Bankman-Fried’s own team of advisers. The largest single grant listed on the Future Fund website was $15 million to a group called Longview, which according to its website counts the philosopher Mr. MacAskill and the chief executive of the FTX Foundation, Nick Beckstead, among its own advisers.

The second-largest grant, in the amount of $13.9 million, went to the Center for Effective Altruism. Mr. MacAskill was a founder of the center. Both Mr. Beckstead and Mr. MacAskill are on the group’s board of trustees, with Mr. MacAskill serving as the chair of the United Kingdom board and Mr. Beckstead as the chair of the U.S. subsidiary.

For the full story, see:

Nicholas Kulish. “Collapse of FTX Strikes a Philanthropy Movement.” The New York Times (Monday, November 14, 2022): B1 & B5.

(Note: ellipses, and bracketed dates, added.)

(Note: the online version of the story was updated Nov. 14, 2022, and has the title “FTX’s Collapse Casts a Pall on a Philanthropy Movement.”)

P&G CEO Defended Using Harsh Criticism of Workers

Deirdre McCloskey frequently says we should use more “sweet talk.” Edwin Artzt defended using harsh talk. Is there room for both?

(p. A8) Edwin Artzt, who expanded Procter & Gamble Co.’s global reach in the 1980s and then, as chief executive officer in the early 1990s, rattled the company’s managers with cost-cutting drives and harsh criticism of their work, died at the age of 92, the Cincinnati-based company said.

As CEO from 1990 until 1995, Mr. Artzt was known for berating managers and using words including “stupid” and “imbecilic” to describe some of their proposals, as recounted in “Soap Opera: The Inside Story of Procter & Gamble,” a 1993 book by Alecia Swasy, a former Wall Street Journal reporter. He didn’t sugarcoat his desire to eliminate weak brands and underperforming employees.

Mr. Artzt, who died on April 6, was sometimes called “The Prince of Darkness.” Some colleagues said the nickname reflected a hot temper. He said it came from his habit of working late.

“I certainly don’t want to have a short trigger with people and not give them a chance,” he told The Wall Street Journal in 1991. “But sure I’ve cleared out deadwood. Probably some of it was still breathing when it was cleared out.”

Two years later, he said: “Terrifying people is not my intention…People come to me years later and say, ‘Remember that meeting 10 years ago? You laid it on me, but I sure remember that lesson.’”

For the full obituary, see:

James R. Hagerty. “P&G CEO’s Harsh Talk Rattled a Bureaucracy.” The Wall Street Journal (Saturday, April 15, 2023): A10.

(Note: the online version of the obituary was updated April 12, 2023, and has the title “Edwin L. Artzt, P&G CEO Known for His Tough Talk, Dies at 92.”)

The book on Proctor & Gamble mentioned above is:

Swasy, Alecia. Soap Opera: The Inside Story of Proctor & Gamble. New York: Crown Publishing, 1993.

“Muskies, Muskites, Muskrats and Musketeers” Hail Musk as “Pretty Awesome . . . Genius” and “Modern-Day Da Vinci”

(p. B1) Cryptocurrency enthusiasts are cheering for a decentralized social network. Supporters of Donald J. Trump hope that the former president will return to tweeting. Some free speech advocates envision an end to censorship. And loyal fans of Elon Musk are betting that the billionaire will innovate.

. . .

. . ., Twitter has lodged itself into the fabric of society. The platform’s future under Mr. Musk has become a symbolic receptacle of people’s desires to push the world (p. B5) in the direction they want it to go.

Few tech executives elicit the kind of blind adoration that Mr. Musk does. His fans — known variously as Muskies, Muskites, Muskrats and Musketeers — defend even his most questionable moves. His deal to buy Twitter has had plenty of critics, including the company’s employees, some lawmakers and disinformation researchers. Many fear what he will do with the platform, over which he now has more or less absolute power as its owner. But on Musk-focused message boards, Discord servers, blogs, podcasts and YouTube channels, the deal is a triumph.

“Him buying Twitter is pretty awesome,” said Bryce Paul, the host of the podcast “Crypto 101.” Mr. Paul does not consider himself a Musk fanboy but believes the billionaire is a “genius” and a “modern-day da Vinci.”

For the full story, see:

Erin Griffith. “It’s All Musk’s and All Changing: It’s a Happy Day for the Millions of ‘Muskies,’ Who Are Anticipating Less Moderation and More Innovation.” The New York Times (Saturday, October 29, 2022): B1 & B5.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the story has the date Oct. 28, 2022, and has the title “For Many, Elon Musk’s Buying Twitter Is a Moment of Celebration.” In the print version, the title “It’s All Musk’s and All Changing” covered two separate articles that each had their own subtitle.)

Early Wealthy Cell Phone Adopters Funded Innovations That “Made Cellphones Affordable to the Masses”

In Openness to Creative Destruction, I argue that early new technologies are often primitive, expensive, and buggy. They are initially bought by the rich who allow the technology to survive while it is being made better and cheaper. See below that cellphones are another example.

(p. A14) On April 3, 1973, four months after the last manned moon mission, a 44-year-old Motorola engineer took a small step onto Sixth Avenue outside the New York Hilton. There Martin Cooper did something commonplace now but at the time revolutionary: He made a call on a cellular telephone.

“Joel,” Mr. Cooper said to the man who picked up, “I’m calling you from a real cellular telephone—a handheld unit.” Joel Engel worked at Bell Labs, the research division of AT&T. Mr. Cooper was calling to gloat about surpassing the phone monopoly.

. . .

“The function of a cellphone—I can’t express it any better—it is to set people free,” Mr. Cooper, 94, says.  . . .  “A cellphone gives a person the freedom to be connected to the rest of the world, wherever they are and whenever they want to.”

. . .

“We expected the first phones to go to wealthy people,” Mr. Cooper says. “To a large extent that was true. But it turns out that one of the biggest users were real-estate people.” They needed to take calls from clients and go out to show properties. “The cellphone allowed them to do both at the same time. They could be showing a home and still answer the call. So to them the phone, even at that huge price, doubled their effectiveness.”

These early adopters, for whom the technology was worth the cost, helped fund further innovation, which ultimately made cellphones affordable to the masses. Advancements in data-transmission, display and input technology made possible the inexpensive, versatile smartphones we take for granted today.

They also brought ill effects, especially for young people, such as compulsive cellphone use and social media that promote both groupthink and bitter division. “Those are all big problems,” Mr. Cooper says.

. . .

But he accentuates the positive. “We are just starting to figure out what the value of the cellphone is,” he says. “Humanity will solve these other problems if the advantages are big enough. And the advantages—the services you get out of the cellphone, the value to you to make you more efficient—are so great that there’s no question in my mind that humanity is going to solve these problems.”

He is confident that the benefits already outweigh the costs. “Today, people are healthier. There are fewer people in poverty. They live longer than ever before. Something has made that happen, and I think the cellphone is one of the contributors.” By improving efficiency, “it has taken away a lot of the time issues, given people more time to do other things.”

For the full interview, see:

Faith Bottum. “THE WEEKEND INTERVIEW; From the ‘Shoe Phone’ to the Smartphone.” The Wall Street Journal (Saturday, April 15, 2022): A13.

(Note: the online version of the interview has the date April 14, 2023, and has the title “THE WEEKEND INTERVIEW; Opinion: From the ‘Shoe Phone’ to the Smartphone.”)

My book that I mention above is:

Diamond, Arthur M., Jr. Openness to Creative Destruction: Sustaining Innovative Dynamism. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019.

Global Warming “Presents a Fleeting Opportunity for Glacial Archaeologists”

(p. 14) Espen Finstad was trudging through mud in the Jotunheimen mountains of eastern Norway this month when he happened upon a wooden arrow, bound with a pointed tip made of quartzite. Complete with feathers, it was so well-preserved that it looked as if it could have been lost just recently.

. . .

The find, which Mr. Finstad and his colleagues believe belonged to a reindeer hunter in the late Stone Age or early Bronze Age, is among thousands of artifacts and remains that have emerged from melting ice in recent years, as climate change thaws permafrost and glaciers around the world.

. . .

The thaw presents a fleeting opportunity for glacial archaeologists: They must find the historical treasures just as they emerge from the ice and before they are destroyed by the elements.

“We’re sort of in a race against time,” said Lars Holger Pilo, a glacial archaeologist and a colleague of Mr. Finstad’s.  . . .

For more than a decade, their team, which runs the Secrets of the Ice project, has scoured mountain passes across the country.  . . .

Since then, the team has discovered around 4,000 artifacts and remains, including a 1,000-year-old wooden whisk and Viking mitten, medieval horseshoes, Bronze Age skis and more than 150 arrows.

Similar work is taking place near Anchorage, Alaska, as well as in northeastern Siberia and Mongolia.

Among the most exciting finds have been Yuka, a 39,000-year-old baby Mammoth found in Siberia in 2010, and a 280-million-year-old tree fossil found in Antarctica in 2016. But the most famous of all is Ötzi — a 5,300-year-old iceman found in 1991 by hikers on the northern Italian border with Austria.

For the full story, see:

Livia Albeck-Ripka. “Melting Ice in Norway Reveals Ancient Arrow.” The New York Times, First Section (Sunday, September 24, 2023): 14.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the story has the date Sept. 23, 2023, and has the title “Ancient Arrow Is Among Artifacts to Emerge From Norway’s Melting Ice.”)