Bill Gates on The Huffington Post

Ariston Anderson: Petra Nemcova Proves Now is the Time to Give More Than Ever

2008-11-19T12:26:55Z

Although Petra Nemcova's 2008 gala for her Happy Hearts Fund was on Wall Street, Monday night at the Cipriani, there was no sign of a recession in sight. The theme of the night, "A Masquerade in Venice," welcomed New York's elite, bringing in droves of lovely ladies in carnival masks and floor-length gowns to the $2500 a seat dinner.

Kevin Spacey (who left shooting for his new film The Men Who Stare at Goats to come), on whether or not it's hard to raise money in these times, tells us, "No, it's hugely important particularly in these times that we constantly remind people that governments can't do everything. Certainly in the past eight years this particular government hasn't done a lot."

Highlighting the importance of raising funds through corporations and individual donors, he continues, "We shouldn't allow organizations like Happy Hearts or any other organization that does this kind of work to suffer during times like this. So it's hugely important that we don't fall into the trap of saying, 'Oh, it's going to be harder to raise money.'"

Petra Nemcova founded Happy Hearts after surviving the 2004 tsunami in Thailand, which took the lives of 300,000 people, including her then fiancé, fashion photographer Simon Atlee. Turning the tragedy into something positive, she launched the fund in 2006 to implement educational programs for children in disaster-struck areas. It exists in 12 countries, including Nemcova's home country the Czech Republic, as well as Sri Lanka, Peru, Vietnam, the Congo, and the United States (New Orleans).

"A few months ago when the recession started, many of the gala dinners from different charities cancelled; and we were discussing it with our board and I said, you know what, even if we raise one dollar, that's one dollar that can make a difference in children's lives," Nemcova, decked out in a diamond-heart necklace, tells us. "But it's not even about the funds; it's about amazing people with beautiful hearts coming and creating a sense of community and raising awareness for what we do."

Host of the night, SNL head writer Seth Meyers welcomed guests who filled the enormous giant hall with "How nice it is there are still rich people!" Seth had been lured to host by all of the hot supermodels present, including Marisa Miller, Mary Alice Stevenson, Molly Sims, and Petra herself, who he described as the "2nd hottest philanthropist," in the country, second only to the very sexy Bill Gates. "The last time there were this many rich people in the same room," he said, "they were asking for a bailout."

Meyers announced that he was wearing black in mourning, like his fellow comedy writers, for while McCain/Palin wouldn't necessarily have been the best for our country, they sure did make for some good material. And the effects are real, as shown by last week's gay-joke heavy SNL episode. But he thinks that Palin is good-hearted, donating her wardrobe to charity, for anyone who wants to dress like "the pornographic version of middle school principal."

Wyclef Jean was honored for his work with his Haitian foundation Yéle Haiti, which implements programs in education, health, and the environment in Haiti. After performing at Petra's gala last year, they teamed up with the Happy Hearts foundation to help deliver computers into schools in Haiti. "A generation cannot move forward without technology," he told the crowd. "It's the key to everything."

On Jean's last trip to Haiti (with pal Matt Damon), he talked to a 104-year-old man, asking him the secret to eternal life. The man whispered, "Everything that your wife tells you, tell her that she's right." Jean described this spirit of laughter amongst disaster as a life trend in Haiti, and expressed that people make something out of nothing there, so imagine if they were given something.

Next up Stewart Rahr, President, CEO of Kinray, was awarded the Heart of Gold. He thanked his friends for coming out to celebrate with him, David Fincher (director of the most anticipated film of the year The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), who flew across the country to see him , and Donald Trump, who traveled 30 blocks to be there. He said Trump "has not stopped complaining for the last 30 minutes about how unhappy and obligated he feels to be here tonight." But regardless of any ill will, Rahr announced that Fincher and Trump were donating $50K each to the Happy Hearts Fund. "There is no gift bigger than giving back," he said. And he should know. Rahr donated $1 million toward underwriting the event, so that all donations raised would go 100% toward the fund.

When asked if it is tough to give in these times Rahr tells us, "Yeah, everything's tough. But as [Armenian-American billionaire] Kirk Kerkorian said, 'There's no luggage rack on a hearse,' so it's OK for me."

The opulence continued with a live performance by Cirque du Soleil. The trapeze artist lost her balance for a moment, but thankfully she was wired. She hopped back onto the bar with ease and continued to swing throughout the high ceilings of the Cipriani. "Let's give it up for Cirque du Soleil," Seth Meyers intervened. "Wow, those are words I never thought I'd say."

Famous auctioneer Simon de Pury hosted the live auction. Bids were slow at first, with $20K buying a package to Germany to see heavyweight boxer Wladimir Klitschko. "I didn't even know you could fly business class to Mannheim, Germany," quipped Meyers. "This is your chance." The bids increased though as the celebs became more recognizable, including a $28K package called "The Fabulous Life of Russell Simmons," which included a week stay in his Hamptons estate, and a case of Krug, (although Simmons himself doesn't drink).

The first ever 100% electric sports car, made by Tesla, went for $160K. The winner donated it back to Happy Hearts, and it sold again for $150K. To top off the night, a package called, "Super Trio," included a tennis lesson with Serena Williams, a night out in London with Kevin Spacey, and the chance to hang out backstage at a U2 concert with the Edge. The price of this priceless package? $130K. With the auction raising $648,000, and the donations from the night, Petra's fund walked away with a total of $3,448,000.

Kevin Spacey took the podium to honor David Hryck, partner at DLA Piper, the world's largest full service law firm. Spacey picked up a sleek Smartphone and said, "I'd like to auction off this Blackberry that I found on the podium. I'm sure it has some amazing numbers in it, and now that I'm looking, some very naughty text messages. Wow, Petra."

Quincy Jones, (who earlier auctioned off a day with Q for $30K) awarded the final golden heart to Jeffrey Tarrant, CEO of investment firm Protégé Partners. The night ended with an "American Boy" performance by Estelle, who traveled for one day from Germany to perform. Wyclef Jean, this time able to just enjoy the entertainment, hung out in the pit, surrounded by dancing supermodels.

Sunil Chacko: Bill Gates Speaks in Tokyo on Vaccine Development, Building the Global Computer Industry, and Innovative Philanthropy

2008-11-17T11:12:09Z

Building Microsoft, Vaccine Development and Philanthropy

After receiving the Goi Peace Foundation's Award in Tokyo last week, Bill Gates spoke about his second career in global philanthropy focused on health, agriculture, and his first -- software development that went to create the worldwide personal computer industry and built the fortune that finances his current endeavour. He described how he and Kazuhiko Nishi and other pioneers in Microsoft spent considerable time in Japan in the 1980s and worked round the clock, consuming "shabu-shabu" and conveyor-belt sushi ("grabbed more tuna sushi") while attempting to reach innovative companies like Logic Systems and Sord, and giant Japanese companies like NEC, Toshiba, Sony, and Matsushita. Gates explained how the opportunity to build Microsoft came at a very early age and that he spent the past 33 years giving most of his time and energy toward that cause of empowering the individual through personal computer (PC) software. Without the Microsoft software fueling the PC revolution, the Internet revolution may have taken more time to blossom, even though the TCP/IP protocol that is at the heart of the Internet was built by others for DARPA in the 1970s to ensure that universities and government institutions could communicate in the event of a nuclear attack. It was Bill Gates who challenged the then-prevalent notion allegedly espoused by another pioneer, Ken Olsen, that not everyone needed a personal computer (there are many variants of that much reported quote, including that no one needed a computer in his/her home, etc). I can personally attest to prominent international development agency executives confidently predicting as late as 1993 that the Internet would "never spread to Africa."

Overall, the message was a hopeful one that "in terms of millennia, centuries, or decades, the world is getting better: healthier, wealthier, more educated, and more peaceful." Gates described how innovation underpins this trend, and indicated his keen interest in vaccine development and cited the example of malaria vaccine R&D. The GlaxoSmithKline malaria vaccine work had been underway for decades when it received a shot-in-the-arm with the arrival of Bill & Melinda Gates, and William Gates, Sr., and their staff to the philanthropy world in the mid-1990s. Malaria kills about a million children every year. Dr. Tachi Yamada, who runs Gates' Global Heath Program is the former research chief for Glaxo. While Plasmodium falciparum is a canny and deadly parasite with its existence estimated since the dawn of time, and its Anopheles mosquito vector from fossils records being at least 30 million years old, it is hoped that a vaccine can cut down the morbidity and mortality.

In a published clinical trial, the GSK vaccine RTS,S/AS02A has been shown to confer partial protection in African children aged 1-4 years living in rural endemic areas against a range of clinical disease caused by P. falciparum for at least 18 months, and confirms the potential of malaria vaccines to become control tools for public-health use. GSK's malaria vaccine likely will enter the market first, although there are about 16 candidate vaccines in clinical development. Some predictions have the GSK vaccine becoming available in Africa in about a year or so.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has financed several other development efforts as well for other vaccines -- notably Tuberculosis and mostly for HIV/AIDS. Despite the challenges in designing a vaccine against a highly mutating organism -- the HIV virus, Bill Gates and his foundation poured hundreds of millions into vaccine design and development against HIV/AIDS. Bill Gates' faith in vaccines stems from the fact that in 1960, 70 million babies were born and 20 million children died, but last year 130 million babies were born and 10 million children died -- a dramatic cutting in half the number of child deaths despite the near-doubling of births. But vaccines can also prevent major suffering in mothers and children too. One that has not featured in many foundations' priority-lists is a vaccine against Chlamydia trachomatis that had been highlighted as a high priority by the Institute of Medicine/National Academy of Sciences priority-setting exercise for new vaccines. It is a serious problem for the poorest people in the world, for women's health and is the largest bacterial cause of maternal deaths through ectopic pregnancies, and the largest bacterial cause of painful, debilitating pelvic inflammatory disease. 100 million cases of Chlamydia trachomatis sexually-transmitted infections (STI) occur and it is a known co-factor for HIV/AIDS transmission, multiplying the risk of HIV infection, especially for women. 55 million people remain infected with (ocular) Chlamydia trachomatis, and 3 million are visually impaired or blind because of trachoma. The total at-risk population is approximately 500 million. One reason why Chlamydia trachomatis does not appear on too many radar screens is that the disease burden affecting chidren: blinding trachoma and that affecting adults (STI, and trachoma) are treated quite separately in burden of disease studies, but the causative organism is the same Chlamydia trachomatis, although the serovars concerned are different. But candidate vaccines have shown promise in covering both ranges of serovars. The Foundation has previousy supported treatment programs for trachoma through the distribution of azithromycin donated by Pfizer.

Another Neglected Area: Food & Nutrition as Complements to Infectious Diseases Control Medications

Bill Gates spoke about his foundation's global focus on heath and agriculture/food.
Quality nutrition is undoubtedly vital for infectious diseases control, beyond delivering chemical drugs to emaciated patients who are unable to work and have no social safety net, and has been a grossly neglected area in public policy internationally over the years. Dr. Kiyoshi Kurokawa, Science Advisor to Japan's Prime Minister, has explained Japan's experience in TB control -- how quality nutrition made a big difference as a complement to medicines in Japan's own efforts as a country recovering from war and poverty in the 1950s.

New, Innovative Global Philanthropy

Mr. and Mrs. Saionji, promoters of the Goi Foundation, did a credible job of questioning Bill Gates and Bill, Sr., even touching on a few "raw" areas such as Bill Gates' departure from Harvard University to build Microsoft, never to return thereafter as a student, something that Bill Sr. conceded caused much consternation in his family at the time.

Queried on "new innovative philanthropy" Bill Gates expressed his view that expertise in companies and universities should be tapped by philanthropy for new medicines, vaccines and diagnostics development. Governments must lead, especially in financing, he said. In the past, there appeared to have been a misunderstanding of the original intention of Congress on the mixing of philanthropic (tax-exempt) resources and the so-called for-profit sector especially on ensuring hope for the poorest. But with Wall Street and Main Street now vociferously urging equity participation by the US government in the most for-profit industries (widely described as the $700 Billion bailout), there should be a welcome change in access to resources wherever they originate from, especially for a chronically resource-starved sector like public health. Rarely has simple analysis been done of total requirements and available resources for specific sub-sector needs. When such estimate is made, it can reveal an alarmingly low sum such as a few cents for each person, which is inadequate to purchase even one course of antibiotics. The ludicrousness of the old rigidities is highlighted especially in the case of Bill Gates. When Bill made his fortune from Microsoft, it was from the "for-profit" sector, even though the most non-profit clinic on a dirt-poor-road in the poorest country aspires to use Microsoft Excel to keep track of patients' information, inventory, and cash resources. Now that Bill has made his donations to his foundation, the very same resources become "non-profit." And, those resources finance the lifeblood of many universities, research institutions and non-governmental organizations - even those faculty and managers who are paid more than the President of the US. The point of the Goi Foundation event could well be to formally put an end to the unnecessary barriers and inefficiencies of the past through recognition of the path-breaking nature of new innovative philanthropy. And, it is a trend that should be encouraged in more countries and with more of those on the Forbes Global List.

Erica Heller: "The Witch of Wall Street," a Cautionary Tale for Tough Times?

2008-11-15T13:48:06Z

My final conversation with my wry and witty mother, on her deathbed 12 years ago, was practically lifted right out of "Mildred Pierce", with a dash of the Marx Brothers thrown in to prevent it from being utterly banal as well as maudlin.

"Come closer," she whispered, beckoning me with a weak but urgent finger.

I did. "I worry about you," she murmured in the raspy voice I'd come to recognize since her illness had struck a year prior. "In your life, you haven't got--" and there, she faltered, searching wildly for the words but failing.

Her breathing was difficult and she looked as if she was about to weep. Thinking that I was helping, I leaped in, offering: "I know. I'm not married, I don't have children."

"Children, schmildren," she waved me away. "You haven't got a shred of sense about money. THAT'S what keeps me awake nights worrying about you. No matter what, you'll always be broke. Just try not to be poor."

She wasn't wrong. But would she always be right?

With the economy in the toilet and that nasty smirk finally wiped off John McCain's face a few weeks ago, hopefully for good (dare I hope?) my thoughts are free now to merrily drift to other things, like how to best tighten a belt that's already strangling me. It was then that I started reading, feverishly, out-Googling Google, about wealthy people in history, smart mogulesque sorts who had somehow managed, from the cradle to the grave, to snag and somehow embody financial security.

One night I came upon, at least to me, the wholly unknown name of Hetty Green, and in every way but financially, this constituted a windfall.

Born Henrietta Howland Robinson, in 1834 in Massachusetts, Hetty might just be today's poster girl for stinginess on steroids. Or not. You be the judge.

Quite simply, she was the world's richest woman, but also earned the nickname of the "Witch of Wall Street," with her severe Quaker clothing and staggering thriftiness.

With a rich family and a father who owned a huge whaling fleet, Hetty was raised with an abstemiousness that belied their wealth but money was certainly of interest to her. By the tender age of six, she could read the financial papers to her father and grandfather. At eight, she opened a savings account with a few nickels she'd set aside, gifts from family. Later on, when she was sent to an exclusive school in Boston, she made no friends and established what was to later be known as a saucy, independent and eccentric streak. This was one woman who knew her own mind.

When she turned 21, in 1855, she inherited $7.5 million from family, became nimble with working Wall Street and multiplied her fortune many, many times over. In New York, she lived practically as a pauper, often eating for fifteen cents in "Pie Alley."

In her early 30s, she met and married Edward Henry Green, who had made his own money in the Orient, trading silk, tobacco and tea. A smart fellow was our Edward. They had two children, Ned and Sylvia, and Hetty continued on in a life of personal autonomy and frugality. She was said to have shopped for broken cookies because they were sold at discount. She received a nickel for bringing back her berry boxes. When she walked about, it was always with a small milk can, searching for where she could get the best bargain on milk for her cat. Apparently, she once spent many hours in a futile search for a two-cent stamp she'd misplaced.

Her eccentricity was not all harmless, however. When her son Ned's injured leg required a doctor's care, she refused to pay for it and his leg had to be amputated.

Widowed a bit later, with her stern visage, dressed in rags and long black skirts, children fled when Hetty walked down the streets because they'd never seen anyone quite like her and they thought she must be a very wicked witch indeed. And when those skirts became dusty and caked with dirt from sweeping along the pavement as she walked, her strict instructions to the launderer were to only clean the very bottoms, thereby saving a few pennies in the process.

In 1912, when Hetty turned 78, she was said to attribute her long life and exuberant health to the fact that she habitually chewed baked onions. She died at the age of 82, with more than $100-$200 million in liquid assets, shrewd and penny-pinching to her last ardent breath. (And back in those days, $100 million was, well, really worth $100 million.) Her greatest extravagance was rumored to be the tip of a nickel she occasionally bestowed upon someone who showed great kindness to her. But spending sprees? Houses and clothing fetched from designer houses of Europe? Exotic, costly vacation? Pricey jewels and shiny trinkets? Not for our Hetty. Despite the fact that the fortune she'd amassed, in today's dollars, would be worth something like $17.3 billion. Take that, Warren Buffett! Bill Gates! Oprah!

For us during our tough times today, "The Witch of Wall Street" and her story can perhaps be seen as a cautionary tale. Surely my mother would have praised Hetty's sagacity to the skies and pointed to her meteoric financial trajectory and exemplary restraint, but would any of us really like to live the life of Hetty Green? And yet, with Hetty at the helm, would the world have found itself in such a catastrophic fiscal crisis?

It is worth noting here, I think, that her children, The Great Inheritors, had considerably more fun with her money, and even spread it around to accomplish good works, help budding industries and fund colleges.

As for me, from now on, it'll be nothing but baked onions, morning, noon and night, at least until I make my first $100 million.

Paul Abrams: Let's Get Creative: Why Not Ask Bill Gates to be Secretary of Education?

2008-11-08T16:40:01Z

OK, I know, Bill Gates is a college dropout.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the world's richest, is heavily involved in improving America's high schools. Bill Gates has retired from Microsoft to devote himself to the philanthropic work of the Foundation. He speaks often and eloquently to politicians and education experts on the issues and potential solutions to the challenges of providing an effective world-class education to our children.

If Gates were asked to be Secretary of Education, I do not believe he would simply do what the rest of us would do--find it very difficult to turn down a request from the President of the United States to help him help the country succeed. Bill Gates is in a unique position of having the financial and institutional strength to have an impact without joining an Administration, plus the added freedom from constraints that any government position imposes.

So, I would expect him to analyze whether he could, in that position, have an even greater impact on education than his philanthropic work alone, and would only accept the offer if he concluded that the answer were a resounding "yes". [And so, whatever his answer, it would be very telling].

With Gates as Secretary, the Department of Education would never be the same. He could get Congress and the President to accept reforms that others could not because of the unique position he occupies in our society. He is not considered partisan nor ideological nor beholden to any interest group, so it would difficult to deny his proposals by raising suspicions on any of those grounds. Who could be more effective than Gates at removing red-tape?

And, if so many roadblocks were erected to keep him from being effective, he could happily resign and return to a very rewarding and effective philanthropic life. The world's easiest political job would then be campaign manager for the opponent of the Senator or Congressman whose intransigence triggered Bill Gates' resignation.

Gates would recruit top people to work with him. The Department of Education would become among the more exciting places to be. And, when he retired, he would leave behind a cadre of people who knew how to do things more effectively.

He could dovetail his Foundation's efforts with the Department's. For example, if the Foundation funded a pilot, he could get committed follow-on support from Congress so long as the outcomes warranted it.

I cannot think of anyone who would be more effective at bringing the "change we need" in education. Would Gates consider it? One never knows until he is asked.

Yes, Mr. Gates is a college dropout; but, perhaps that might be worth overlooking.

After all, it's only our children's future.

Steve Clemons: Who Wasn't On Stage With Obama and Should Have Been?

2008-11-08T07:29:59Z

I'm not satisfied with the roster of economic personalities and thinkers we see Barack Obama mixing with.

I realize that there are a lot of players behind the scenes and those who walked out on stage (list below) are symbolic of clusters of other people and thinkers -- though every time I see Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers in the same group, it reminds me of the UK and France on the P-5 at the UN Security Council. Do we really need two European members in the same permanent body? Do we really need both Rubin and Summers at every meeting with press availability?

Below I have provided the roster of names who stood on stage with President-elect Obama yesterday at his first post election press conference.

But some who were missing who Obama should build in -- some are not now advisers and some are.

First of all, Jason Fuhrman and Austan Goolsbee are clearly going to be important parts of Obama's economic team. Goolsbee is rumored to be the likely shoe-in for Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors. He really should be on stage too given that possibility and his influence in Obama's economic thinking. Fuhrman as well.

But beyond the obvious, I would like to see George Soros, Warren Buffet and Bill Gates on stage.

Soros not only predicted the global financial meltdown but wrote an entire book about it - and gave early warnings about needing to create new mechanisms to deal with credit default swaps -- which he called a "Damocles sword" hanging over the head of the entire global financial system -- earlier this year. Soros should be playing a bigger role in economic policy sculpting, and he shouldn't be in the background.

We know that Buffet is talking with Obama. But I'd include Bill Gates who understands the importance of investing in high multiplier economic infrastructure as opposed to investments that yield few long term positive recurring results.

I'd like to see Paul Krugman, Joseph Stiglitz, Jeffrey Sachs, James Galbraith, Leo Hindery, Clyde Prestowitz, Charlene Barshefsky, C. Fred Bergsten, Adam Posen, Robert Kuttner, Robert Samuelson, Alan Murray, William Bonvillian, Doug & Heidi Rediker, Bernard Schwartz, Tom Gallagher, Sheila Bair, Sherle Schwenninger, and Kevin Phillips added to a discussion group on the economy. It would be far more diverse, less predictable, genuinely interesting and produce greater policy option possibilities than the quite "regal" group on stage.

Here is who made Obama's cut yesterday. . .

William Daley - Chairman of the Midwest, JP Morgan Chase; Former Secretary, U.S. Dept of Commerce, 1997-2000

Robert Reich - University of California, Berkeley; Former Secretary, U.S. Dept of Labor, 1993-1997

Penny Pritzker - CEO, Classic Residence by Hyatt

Roger Ferguson - President and CEO, TIAA-CREF and former Vice Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve

Lawrence Summers - Harvard University; Managing Director, D.E. Shaw; Former Secretary, U.S. Dept of Treasury, 1999-2001

Anne Mulcahy - Chairman and CEO, Xerox

Richard Parsons - Chairman of the Board, Time Warner

Paul Volcker - Former Chairman, U.S. Federal Reserve 1979-1987

Rahm Emanuel - United States Representative (IL-05)

President Elect Obama

Vice President Elect Biden

Jennifer Granholm - Governor, State of Michigan

Robert Rubin - Director and Senior Counselor, Citigroup; Former Secretary, U.S. Dept of Treasury, 1995-1999

David Bonior - Member House of Representatives (Michigan) 1977-2003

Laura Tyson - (Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley; Former Chairman, National Economic Council, 1995-1996; Former Chairman, President's Council of Economic Advisors, 1993-1995)

Antonio Villaraigosa - Mayor, City of Los Angeles

William Donaldson - Former Chairman of the SEC, 2003-2005

Eric Schmidt - Chairman and CEO, Google

Roel Campos - Former Commissioner of the SEC

We should be able to spice up this distinguished crowd with some more original thinkers.

-- Steve Clemons publishes the popular political blog, The Washington Note

Update: Warren Buffett was involved in the meeting but on conference call.

Shelly Palmer: Microsoft Still Not Interested in Acquiring Yahoo: MediaBytes with Shelly Palmer November 7, 2008

2008-11-07T10:19:39Z

Steve Ballmer noted that Microsoft is not interested in acquiring Yahoo. Ballmer is quoted as saying "We made an offer, we made another offer.. We moved on." However, Ballmer did not rule out the possibility of a potential search ads deal.

Microsoft is trying to sign a mobile search and advertising deal with Verizon. Currently, Verizon is in talks with Google, however, Microsoft is offering Verizon a more generous revenue sharing plan and a higher guarantee. Microsoft sees a mobile search and ad deal with Verizon as a way to significantly increase its reach for mobile search.

Craigslist has reached a deal with 40 state attorneys to curb its "erotic services" listings. Craigslist, which is notorious for catering to sex-oriented businesses, now makes erotic service advertisers provide a phone number, which is called by an automate service for verification. The Internet classifieds site will also charge a small fee of between $5-10 for all erotic services ads.

Samsung has overtaken Motorola as the leading vendor of handsets in the U.S.. Samsung owns a 22.4% share of the market, compared with Motorola's 21.1% and LG's 20.5%. Samsung has increased sales by offering high end touch-screen phones, as well as lower-end phones given free to consumers who sign up for a new plan.

All My Children star, and notorious Emmy nominee (and one time winner), Susan Lucci was voted off ABC's Dancing with the Stars. Despite Lucci's "doble paso" being a hit with judges, Lucci and partner, Tony Dovolani, did not make the final five contestants.

Plus, today's consulting question, "What is white space?" Shelly has the answer on today's MediaBytes.

Shelly Palmer is a consultant and the host of MediaBytes a daily show featuring news you can use about technology, media & entertainment. He is Managing Director of Advanced Media Ventures Group LLC and the author of Television Disrupted: The Transition from Network to Networked TV (2008, York House Press). Shelly is also President of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, NY (the organization that bestows the coveted Emmy® Awards). You can join the MediaBytes mailing list here. Shelly can be reached at shelly@palmer.net

Biggest Loser: Bill Gates Loses $1.5 Billion As Buffett Becomes US Richest

2008-10-10T13:46:50Z

Warren Buffett has overtaken Bill Gates to become the richest American in the Forbes 400 list, Bloomberg said, citing a recalculated list to be published later this month.

The magazine, in its October 27 issue, recalculates the effect of September's financial news on the wealthiest Americans, those who make up its Forbes 400 list, the agency said.

The Berkshire Hathaway Inc chairman added $8 billion to his net worth in a 33-day period, August 29 to October 1, to reach $58 billion, the agency said, citing the magazine.

Buffett overtook the Microsoft Corp co-founder, whose net worth declined $1.5 billion to $55.5 billion during the 33-day period, the agency said.

Ron Galloway: The New Meaning Of Diversification

2008-10-06T12:15:27Z

It used to be that prudent investing always revolved around the principle of "diversification." Putting your money into different assets, you were told by your advisor, spread your risk around and prevent one stock, mutual fund, or asset class from dragging you down.

I always found this advice to be a bit naive. A few assets, carefully chosen and monitored, offers more risk but also more return. Statistically, once you own more than about 7 stocks you might as well own 30 or 50 because they cross correlate and essentially become an index. Ask Warren Buffett how he feels about diversification. Or better yet Bill Gates or Steve Jobs. Most of their wealth is tied up in one stock. The trick is knowing when to sell or protect your position. When Mark Cuban sold Broadcast.com to Yahoo he became a billionaire in Yahoo stock. However, Yahoo started to plunge in value. Cuban was astute enough to buy puts on his stock to protect his position, and while other owners of Yahoo saw their wealth evaporate in the tech wipeout of 2001, Cuban prospered. He was diversified into one stock, but he knew to monitor it himself and protect his position. I was at a soccer game the other day with employees of Wachovia who were shell shocked that their company stock cratered in a week. Why more investors don't use stop loss orders is a mystery to me.

In these days of ultra-low commissions it makes no sense not to sell when trouble appears, especially in non-taxable retirement accounts. Yet people will watch their accounts go down and do nothing, or listen to their advisor. Here's a news flash. If your financial advisor was any good, he wouldn't be a financial advisor. He'd be retired, having grown wealthy on his own advice. Ask yourself why he still schlepps to work every day. Financial advisors are product distributors, plain and simple. I heard from a friend yesterday of stockbrokers selling Lehman bonds, now worthless, to little old ladies as recently as a month ago. That's not advice, that's a firm unloading its inventory to protect itself. Investing is Darwinian, and should be treated as such.

Which brings me to the point of this post. Given the institutional failures and bank runs we've witnessed recently, diversification takes on a brand new meaning. AIG nearly went broke. Merrill Lynch nearly went broke. Lehman did go broke. Bear Stears did go broke. WaMu? Gone. Wachovia? Buh-bye. These days diversification also means diverifying amongst institutions, i.e., keeping your money in multiple places. Like stocks, institutions go down too. Having all your money with one brokerage firm or financial advisor is foolhardy, even if they are "diversifying" your investments. Invest with multiple institutions. As Prince said, "In this life, things are much harder than the afterworld. This life, you're on your own."

Jason Notte: Have A Latte, Idiot: The Coffee Wars Turn Bitter

2008-10-03T17:41:09Z

How does a seemingly ubiquitous entity touting change and social responsibility become known as an elitist, foreign-speaking pseudo-intellectual completely out of touch with the general public?

For Starbucks, it starts with an opponent so hungry for a victory that it is willing to label its own supporters as knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing, gender-stereotyped poseurs who are exhausted from soaking up culture with their cappuccino. McDonald's has caffeinated its campaign against Starbucks with a high-octane accusation usually reserved for New Jersey diner coffee talk: "You think you're better than me?"

Within the last month, the folks beneath the Golden Arches have centered their negative coffee campaigning around two gender-specific ads entitled "The Intellectuals." In the first installment, which makes Lyndon Johnson's "Daisy Girl" ad look like a Peanuts holiday special, two women sitting in an unnamed coffee house are so relieved to hear that McDonald's is serving lattes that they slowly untangle the web of lies that is their existence. Apparently, their love of caramel macchiatos had cost them the ability to read gossip magazines, wear heels, watch television and freely admit to others that they don't know or care about foreign languages or countries.

Poseur No. 1: "I don't know where Paraguay is!" No. 2: "Paraguay?"

Notice the moment right around the 37th second when one woman casts off her shackles of oppression by throwing a book over her shoulder and, seemingly, into a fireplace. Vive la resistance! No, I'm sorry, "Fuck yeah, resistance!" These women don't want to knuckle under to those evil bastards who'll force them to listen to Bob Dylan records or "jazz." In their minds, such places just want to repress you and make you feel bad about made-up places like "Paraguay" so you'll buy "fair trade" coffee they say gives farmers a larger percent of the profits. Puh-lease! They know how much a thing of Folgers costs and are just a little sick of women who wouldn't know how to show off a set of knockout gams if Betty Grable walked into the room and gave them a lesson.

Not content with pouring a steaming cup of java into the laps of empowered women and Ronald McDonald Scholarship recipients everywhere, McDonald's set its sights on their male counterparts. The gents' critique is based more in aesthetics, as the McLiberated guys take self-ameliorating jabs at the goatees, turtlenecks and fake glasses that they were using in an apparent attempt to slip roofies into some unsuspecting barista's Americano.

The lesson to be learned here, men of America, is that Starbucks is out to neuter you. They want to strip you of your football, hot cars, meat, beer, Will Ferrell movies and rock music and force you to watch Vicki Cristina Barcelona until you develop a fondness for The Preservation Hall Jazz Band and a crush on Diane Keaton. If McDonald's comes off as a bit anti-intellectual for claiming that men don't have the mental capacity to enjoy films and football at the same time, it's only doing so out of a sense of self-preservation.

Bookish, coffee quaffing eggheads such as "Fast Food Nation" author Eric Schlosser and "Super Size Me" director Morgan Spurlock have been causing McDonald's quite a bit of grief lately. Between Schlosser's assertion that Ronald McDonald doesn't give a damn about his workers or the children he's inflating with high fructose corn syrup and Spurlock's nausea-inducing documentary that resulted in the artery-choked death of super sizing, Mickey D's reasons for shooing America's men off to their fantasy football leagues and fall fashion outings at Sears appear understandable.

Also valid are the reasons McDonald's seems to believe its customers are George Romero-style zombies too hungry and brainless to know they're being called idiots. This is the same company that both lost a high-profile, $2.86 million lawsuit ($640,000 on appeal) that led to warning labels on every cup of its coffee and, just last week, witnessed CNN equate the $700 billion economic bailout bill to "2,000 McDonald's apple pies" for every American. None of this bodes well for Mensa applications from McDonaldland.

Though McDonald's has made the harshest statement in the corporate coffee class war thus far, it wasn't the first. Even before Starbucks closed 600 stores and laid off 1,000 employees in July, Dunkin Donuts took the opportunity to mock the Starbucks sizing system as a language it refers to as "Fritalian." It would seem that ad teams that fail to grasp "grande" or "venti" also find irony elusive. While Coen Brothers go-to-guy and cinematic everyman John Goodman noted that competing Dunkin' Donuts lattes were ordered "in English," he left it to the audience to figure out that latte is an Italian word. Also, the "Fritalian" anthem is being sung by They Might Be Giants, a band that centered its last album for adults around the single "The Mesopotamians," which re-imagines ancient Middle Eastern kings Sargon, Hammurabi, Ashurbanipal, and Gilgamesh as a touring band. Such commercial numbskullery is much easier to swallow when you're aware that, if the the language existed, the band singing about it just might write a whole album in Fritalian.

That the class debate has spread from coffee is of somewhat greater concern. Microsoft's latest commercials lambaste Apple for daring to say its users are somewhat hipper than a competitor with roughly quadruple its computer market share. You'd expect this kind of reaction from Miller High Life, whose deliverymen yank the "Champagne of Beers" out of every bistro in America in its ads, but from Bill Gates? In a way, Gates and McDonald's get it, and it's killing them. Apple and Starbucks aren't exactly mom-and-pop shops and don't have the philanthropic reach of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation or Ronald McDonald House, yet they're still treated like rock stars while McDonald's and Microsoft are the old couple who come home to nothing but grief. "Stop being a monopoly, stop making us fat." Bitch, bitch bitch.

By lashing out, they let loose that inner voice that says "coffee and iPods can't make you more artistic, creative or well-educated!" No, but your competitors can embrace those qualities in their customers and reap the financial and social benefits while you throw your tantrum.

"You think you're better than me?" Absolutely, and I'm lovin' it.

Raymond J. Learsy: Bailout Ballet: New York Times Reports on Hank Paulson/Pimco's Bill Gross Pas de Deux

2008-09-26T00:43:40Z

Talk about setting the fox in the hen house, the New York Times outdid itself today ("For Hire: Bailout Advisor," 09.25.08) in puffing Bill Gross's frightening offer to become the bailout adviser to the Treasury. "And I'd even be willing to say if the Treasury wanted to use our help, it would come, you know, free and clear." And why not -- the last time the Treasury took his advice, which was endlessly proffered on CNBC, Mr. Gross and his Pacific Investment Management Company (Pimco), the country's largest bond mutual fund, hit the jackpot with a $1.7 billion payday piggybacking the Treasury's and taxpayer's bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac last month.

According to Gross he was not out of line in recommending and pushing for a bailout from which Pimco would benefit outrageously because "Pimco had no official role in formulating the plan...we want safe agency guaranteed mortgages. We don't want to take a lot of risk in subprime space." Huh?? Since when in recent memory, and until the bailout, was Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac paper not "subprime space." What's going on here?

Well, later in the Times' article it was reported that Mr. Gross regularly talks to Mr. Paulson. Could one conjecture that Mr. Gross's persuasiveness goes beyond appearances on CNBC and as far as Mr. Paulson's ear? Certainly the redemption of all classes of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bonds at full value is highly peculiar given that some $110 Billion in Lehman Bonds are now trading at 18 cents on the dollar according to the Financial Times (Sept. 23).

As reported in the Times, Mr. Gross further argues against measures that would restrict executive compensation, a position that Mr. Paulson shared with Mr. Gross until Mr. Paulson was made to understand it was a non-starter in Congress. Of course there was no mention of Mr.Gross' relationships with all those executives whose compensation might be restricted.

The article goes on to state that Mr. Gross, in his beneficence, argues that
"foreign banks should be allowed to take part in the program." The initial outlines of the bailout program specifically excluded foreign banks and their American affiliates. The ink was barely dry on the initial bailout outline when pressure was brought to bear to amend it, striking that exemption (please see "The Bailout: The Bond Billionaires Piggybacking The American Taxpayer For Another Gilded Ride," 09.24.08). Perhaps one could imagine that there might have been another one of those Gross-Paulson telephone calls wherein Mr. Paulson was reminded that Pimco is an affiliate of Allianz, the large German insurer headquartered in Munich.

On January 28 of this year I posted "Citicorp's Self Immolation and the Beginning of the Eclipse of American Style Capitalism" that it was long past time that crony capitalism in this country be ended. That "Foreclosures, lost jobs and lost futures, for the middle class and the underpowered can no longer be tolerated while the corporate bigwigs dance off richer then ever before. It is a sign that American capitalism has grown rotten at the core. The capitalist impulse, the kind that made a Bill Gates possible, that nurtured his exemplary vision, making him rich and all of us as a society richer, is under attack by vested and influential interests that have stacked the game to such one sided advantage, that it is on the verge of losing all credibility and crushing our confidence in a system that was a meritocracy and a beacon unto others. It is obscene, and a healthy society cannot permit it to continue."

Harry Shearer: Alchemy Lives!

2008-09-21T08:55:03Z

I'm not an economic idiot -- I remember what "elasticity of demand" means -- but I may be an economic special-needs person. Even so, there's one fact about the current credit meltdown that seems to be escaping a lot of attention. I know President Bush wants to solve the problem, and leave the process of finding out how the problem came about for later (maybe four months down the road?), but my needs aren't that special.

So here goes: the key to the process of wrapping questionable mortgages together in fancy financial packages and selling them to financial institutions far away was making those packages attractive. What better way than to turn them into bonds rated AAA, the same rating given to bonds issued by our strongest corporations and best-managed cities? But how does that happen? It would seem to be like turning dross into gold, the old alchemists' trick.

Enter the bond-rating agencies, the folks whose job it is to signal to investors which bonds are golden and which are junk (even junk bonds had their day, although it was in the 1980s). So what possibly convinced these normally sober ladies and gentlemen that financial instruments that basically turned slices of questionable mortgages into "securities" deserved a triple-A rating? I'm all ears.

Maybe Carly Fiorina could explain it to me.

Raymond Leon Roker: New Microsoft Ad: I'm a Mac, but I'm Listeninge

2008-09-20T03:52:02Z

Apple has been having its way with Microsoft for a while now, but the one-sided televised fight for tastemaker supremacy has just gotten interesting. Microsoft, after taking it lying down for what seemed like an eternity, hired hotshot ad shop Crispin Porter & Bogusky (think Volkswagen, Burger King and the Truth campaign) to even out the playing field. And if this effort--light years better than the funny but predictable Seinfeld/Bill Gates spot--is an example of what's to come, it's going to be a lot harder for "I'm a Mac" to say it all.

CP&B was brought on to take a little wind out of Apple's sales (intended), but it remains to be seen what kind of listening Mac users will be capable of. We're an elite bunch. The agency is known for recharging sagging brands through sharp, unconventional brashness, typically inventing memorable new themes or characters in the process. To get PC users feeling less inadequate, and Mac users less mighty, it will take a gifted campaign. In a Fast Company article, Crispin figurehead Alex Bogusky put it like this: "What Crispin has been able to do consistently is not just produce breakthrough work, but actually create new audiences for brands." It may be the perfect time for a new PC audience.

Let's face it, we live in a moment where the same forces that brought the once written off underdog Apple (yes, there was a time, kids) into stylistic prominence--along with 14% of the U.S. market share--also exist for the other side. This shift--the rise of the creative class--can effectively be used to promote PCs since this strata exists in all professions and social groups. Whereas when I started my magazine on a Macintosh 18 years ago, my defiant claim was Apple was the tool of the creative vanguard. The company had already put that seed--an accurate claim back then--in hearts and minds with their groundbreaking Ridley Scott '1984' commercial. And I was the living embodiment of that hammer-swinging rebel in the ad, an indie publisher, creating something with technology that wasn't even available a few years before.

More importantly, I felt that Apple was building machines specifically for me, my generation. And PCs, not entirely by their own fault, fell easily into the 'your dad's computer' pile. everything from the way Macs were designed, to their packaging, to the vendors that sold them, was fresh. And when you looked around, even in those early days, Apple users were pushing the envelope in creative ways. I wanted in. Apple spoke to me. PCs weren't ever even a consideration.

The brand new Microsoft commercial takes dead aim at this presumed hegemony. By brilliantly confronting the Apple spots (produced by LA-area Media Arts Lab) head-on, Microsoft has pushed back hard against their PC-mocking assertions. It's the kind of ad a) you'd expect from CP&B and b) that Microsoft had to do if they were going to make any noise at all. Call it their Palin moment. By utilizing a vast array of individuals, from the famous (Deepak Chopra, Pharrell, Eva Longoria) to the un-famous, but original (a black astronaut, a graffiti artist, an animal activist), the spot shows what PC users have probably all wanted to yell out: We're cool too.

Now, a commercial can't change the world. You still won't find me on a PC anytime soon--though I'd love to try out a Zune one of these days. Apple is also great at reminding you--and many a PC user will grudgingly testify--that Mac's are still ahead in terms of ease and intuitive design. Not to mention, to many, trying to paint PCs as the tools of change is like putting John McCain's face on the Obama 'Hope' posters. And the elegance of Apple's design, their innovation and the genius of lord/guru/god Steve Jobs is going to continue to produce the most coveted plastic and aluminum around. But if a commercial can say something something 85% of U.S. computer users have probably felt at one point, it's that Microsoft can bring as many counterparts to John Hodgman's character as the Apple side can. As a die-hard Apple fan, I got the message.

This editorial originally appeared in my blog.

Update: The 'graffiti artist', as it turns out, is well known LA artist Man One, somebody I know and admire.

Jerry Seinfeld And Bill Gates' Microsoft Ads Being Pulled

2008-09-18T08:50:45Z

Microsoft is preparing to pull its TV ads featuring comedian Jerry Seinfeld and Microsoft's co-founder and chairman Bill Gates.

Microsoft spokesman Frank Shaw said the end of the Seinfeld ads was planned well in advance, and wasn't coming in response to any criticism of the spots. "All along we said we were having a teaser campaign," he said. "We're getting ready to start the second phase. This was the plan all along."

The news, broken this afternoon by Valleywag, comes just days after Microsoft aired the latest in the series of commercials, produced by Crispin Porter + Bogusky, featuring the two men in comic situations. The ads have been largely panned as a strained effort on the software giant's part to not only promote Windows but also portray Microsoft as cool and in touch with regular consumers -- basically, to counter the stodgy image painted in Apple's "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" ads.

Seinfeld, who reportedly received $10 million for his efforts, was a superstar in the 1990s with his hit show. Using him now, in 2008, only added to Microsoft's image as being behind the times, critics said.

Keep reading

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Forbes List: Bill Gates Richest Man In America For 15 Years In A Row

2008-09-17T18:35:58Z

Microsoft founder Bill Gates is the richest person in the United States for the 15th year in a row, but economic woes have claimed some members of Forbes magazine ranking of the 400 wealthiest Americans.

Dropouts this year include former American International Group chief executive Maurice Greenberg, and former eBay chief Meg Whitman, while among those on the list some 126 fortunes declined -- six times more than last year.

Jerry Seinfeld's Microsoft Ad Premieres (VIDEO)

2008-09-04T23:56:12Z

During NBC's NFL broadcast Thursday night of the Giants v. the Redskins the new Microsoft ad featuring Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates debuted. Last month news broke Seinfeld would be participating in the $300 million campaign for a fee of about $10 million.

Watch:

John Sauer: Finding the Toilet in Stockholm

2008-08-27T14:56:21Z

Last week a mix of water and sanitation experts gathered for World Water Week in Stockholm, Sweden to mull over the world's biggest public health crisis. The problem is that not enough people paid attention.

Each year over 2 million deaths could be prevented with improvements related to access to safe drinking-water, sanitation and hygiene. To put that in perspective, we have it within our grasp to prevent the equivalent deaths of 10 Asian tsunamis or 1,000 Hurricane Katrinas. Yet a major effort--like those that have been launched to address HIV/AIDS and malaria--to tackle the global drinking water and sanitation crisis remains elusive. The scope of this disconnect is baffling; water- and sanitation-related diseases (like relatively-easy-to-prevent diarrhea) kill more children each year than HIV/AIDS, malaria, and measles combined.

One reason why there hasn't been a Herculean effort to address this global scourge is that we in the water and sanitation sector are not doing enough to influence how this issue is understood by others. We have not been proactive or coordinated enough to frame the issue to the media and the wider development community in an action-oriented "this-can-be-done" tone.

All too often, water and sanitation has been framed as a "privatization" issue instead of an "access" issue. This is problematic. The "privatization" frame is confusing. It too often results in a blame game that takes attention away from the end result of the sector's work: getting water and sanitation to those who need it. Many of the most innovative, scalable solutions to the water and sanitation crisis are locally initiated approaches, such as the production of latrine slabs or ceramic water filters. They are put in place by a combination of actors: beneficiaries, communities, governments, local entrepreneurs, corporations and NGOs. The work of all of them is necessary to solve this problem.

There is a great need for the water and sanitation sector to reframe the issue so that those outside the sector understand what is at stake and become part of the solution. This effort will take leadership, resources, and working together (for more than one week in Stockholm). I propose "universal access" as the theme that guides this new direction. Developed countries have had universal access to water and sanitation for nearly 100 years. It makes no sense why the rest of the world can't get universal access as well.

Another explanation why the water and sanitation crisis remains in the shadows is that "sanitation" specifically has been ignored. Let's face it-- diseases associated with sanitation, like diarrhea, do not have "disease appeal" for governments and donors. The result is that very few people in the general public even know that 2.5 billion people do not have access to improved sanitation--nearly half of whom actually have to resort to open defecation. Those who do learn are outraged and take action.

More resources must be devoted to recruiting sanitation champions. HIV/AIDS has a built-in constituency because many people have a direct connection with someone who has suffered from or died of HIV/AIDS. Malaria has David Beckham trumpeting its cause. Sanitation needs a brave soul to be its spokesperson.

It has become a joke in the sector that no one in their right mind would become a "sanitation spokesperson." But this is no laughing matter. The lack of sanitation is one of the main reasons there isn't greater progress towards enabling the world's poor to meet their basic needs; malnutrition, poor education and disease burden are all exacerbated by inadequate sanitation. And the plight of the poor becomes more related to the survival of all as the world gets smaller each day.

In fact, some high-profile individuals have spoken out about the urgency of access to sanitation and they should be applauded. Matt Damon, Ashley Judd, Keira Knightley are a few. Would they be willing to form a Sanitation Celebrity Council to move this issue to its tipping point?

So the appeal I'd make to the 2,500 experts who went to Stockholm is to start a "universal access" campaign and to make sanitation--the most important medical advance since 1840--a major part of it. It's time to elevate water and sanitation to the status that it enjoyed during the UN's first Water Decade, which ended in 1990. This is, after all, the second Water Decade (2005-2015) in case we forgot. It's time to get this done.

Brad Spirrison and Howard Wolinsky: Is Tech Dead In Chicago?

2008-08-22T18:33:19Z

It was back before the Internet boom in the late '90s. I was riding in a Lincoln Town car heading downtown from a South Side school interviewing Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates for the Chicago Sun-Times.

I asked him what he knew about the Silicon Prairie. Gates is a well-informed guy on matters tech. But his face went blank. He seemed a bit puzzled, as he searched his mental database. Silicon Prairie. Silicon Prairie? Does not compute. Does not compute.

Finally, the lights went on, he asked, "Is that like the Silicon Forest?" The Silicon Forest was Seattle 's attempt to build on the presence of Gates' Microsoft and other tech companies to create a Silicon Valley-type image.

(Back then, Silicon Prairie was a popular concept. It turns out that Iowa, Wyoming and Dallas laid claim to having Silicon Prairies as well. In fact, the sili-ness was popular on all fronts: New York's Silicon Alley along with the Silicon Swamps, Silicon Beaches, Silicon Mountains, Silicon Hills, Silicon Tundra, on and on.)

Gates also seemed unaware our local 800-pound gorilla (and guerilla) Andrew J. "Flip" Filipowski and his Platinum Technology. Soon afterward in 1999, Platinum would sell to Computer Associates for $3.5 billion, the record for a software company up to that time.

I also asked Oracle founder Larry Ellison, a graduate of South Shore High School, who has the distinction of dropping out from both the University of Illinois and the University of Chicago, (Gates only could brag of dropping out of Harvard), if he'd heard of the Silicon Prairie. But Ellison too looked puzzled. He was more of a Silicon Valley than a Silicon Prairie kind of guy.

It became a running joke for me. When I went out on assignment, I told my editor I was searching for the Silicon Prairie. And in those days, we had more of a claim toward some sort of tech sector here, as dozens and dozens of Web-based start-ups emerged and Filipowski's Divine InterVentures, an Internet Zaibatsu (look it up at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaibatsu), loomed large, attracting largess and reputation from the likes of chewing gum king Bill Wrigley and hoopster airness king Michael Jordan.

Then came the bust. Divine disappeared and $1 billion of other people's money evaporated with him. Filipowski, who had told old-line enterprises like Sears to move over or die, went into exile in North Carolina, though still holding a stake in the White Sox Winston-Salem Warthogs minor league team. (Any talk of Flip going after the Cubs?) And the late Bob Bernard's high-flying MarchFirst consultancy, private jets and all, crash-landed, along with most of the rest of the Web companies.

We still had Motorola, the inventor of the cell phone. During the boom, Motorola, which pioneered car radios (it was pretty tough tech to overcome to avoid burning up cars with in-dash radio back the late 1920s) and walkie-talkies, grew to 150,000 employees during the Internet and telecom booms. And Motorola had some exciting moments, with the RAZR, the slim phone that became the best-selling phone in history. Now, Moto is selling off its cell phone division, and is becoming as thin as the RAZR, as the Apple iPhone seems to gain girth in North America anyway.

The rest of the telecom sector was gutted here, too. Tens of thousands of jobs disappeared at Lucent, Tellabs and elsewhere. It reminds me of when I covered the space program for Florida Today, as its known now, in the 1970s, when after launches they'd have pink slip parties as people were laid off, and engineers opened poodle grooming parlors and delis. (Are our laid-off Silicon Prairie telecom engineers at least opening sandwich shops and poodle parlors?)

Daniel Burnham, the Chicago architect, who in the 1880s pioneered the revolutionary skyscraper tech and who urged Chicago to "think big". These days, thinking big is about thinking small--with nanotechnology and the nano gods at Northwestern University, also known as Nano U, and some emerging nano start-ups.

But where else is the action here? Brad, you ignorant slut (just kidding), seems like the Silicon Prairie is in hibernation at best.

These are sad days in Chicago tech. Is the Silicon Prairie dead? Did ever exist to begin with?

My dear friend Howard,

It's funny that two guys with a combined 30+ years of experience with the Sun-Times are using a term made popular by the Tribsters to label all that is local tech in Chicago. I realize that saying the two of us combined for 30 years at the paper is akin to having Michael Jordan and Stacy King combine (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6BoEG4qf14) for 70 points against the Cavaliers in 1990 (Jordan had 69), but I digress.

Having covered and worked in the Internet and technology industries in Chicago for nearly a decade, I can confidently say that the sector is as strong as it has been in that period. Referencing Bill Gates and Larry Ellison is beside the point. Chicago will never and should never try to compare itself to Silicon Valley, Seattle or any of the other alleged "tech centers" throughout North America. The city's diversified economy is comprised of a completely different kind of DNA.

In Chicago, the Internet and information technology in general have always been more enablers to doing business than business verticals unto themselves. Of course there are always exceptions that you described like Motorola, but the true undercurrent of technological development in Chicago comes when generations-old industries discover more innovative ways to do business.

Take financial services, for instance. When the Chicago Board of Trade was established in 1848, it was the world's only futures and options exchange. While open outcry and funny looking hand language was the medium of choice for several generations, the past decade has seen a swift and permanent transition to electronic transactions.

Today, Chicago-conceived "fin-tech" companies like Archipelago, ThinkorSwim and OptionsXpress are redefining how business is done in that industry. To boot, they established 9 and 10-figure valuations within their first decade of operations. Looking ahead, traders and financial-oriented engineers that cashed out on the CBOT/CME merger http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=alh6YXRVDmVo&refer=homeare putting their spoils back in play funding new startups just out of the gate.

Most people who read blogs like the Huffington Post are familiar with FeedBurner. While the company's $100 million sale to Google is not an earth-shattering amount of money, its feed management technology is now a significant unit within the fastest growing media/Internet company on the planet. Google's presence in Chicago, by the way, is at approximately 500-employees and growing now that the Doubleclick merger has gone through. Chicago hosts one of the company's largest satellite offices, with a sales staff calling on scores of local interactive agencies that manage ad budgets for some of the largest brands in the world.

Headquartered at the old Montgomery Ward factory on 600 W. Chicago Avenue are a trio of companies "dis-intermediating" the commercial printing, transportation logistics and media procurement industries respectively. InnerWorkings, Echo Global Logistics and MediaBank - all founded in the last eight years - have generated hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue bringing old industries up to speed on the web. The company's combined have raised nearly $150 million in venture capital from New Enterprise Associates, one of the most established venture firms in the country.

So, while Chicago may never generate a Grand Slam technology company like Google or Microsoft, the town's technology pros are doing just fine moving runners along the base paths. The most refreshing thing about the "Chicago tech community" over the last couple years is that there is less of that Second City mentality and fewer people lamenting that we can't be more like the Valley. Those who aren't happy move. Others who stay, in a uniquely Chicagoan way, just roll up their sleeves and make hay.