Quote

Look at what Silicon Valley has done - the advance of computers.

Originally, I was in both software and in online computing. The first innovation really was sort of at that time that we're marrying the telephone and the computer so that people wouldn't have to drive to the computer center. We didn't have $1,000 computers.

My dad's a biophysicist. My brother is a computer guy. His wife works at Microsoft.

I am always interested in helping and growing new tech start-ups and ideas.

I joined the staff of EMI in Middlesex in 1951, where I worked for a while on radar and guided weapons and later ran a small design laboratory. During this time, I became particularly interested in computers, which were then in their infancy. It was interesting, pioneering work at that time: drums and tape decks had to be designed from scratch.

Dad was very into electronics, robotics and computers, so I was interested in what he was doing.

My father, an entrepreneur but hardly a technologist, was looking to buy a computer to 'automate' our family business. In 1981, he characteristically dove head first into computing and bought an Osborne I.

I got lucky because my dad moved us to Silicon Valley before it really was known worldwide as an important tech hub.

Of all the inventions of humans, the computer is going to rank near or at the top as history unfolds and we look back. It is the most awesome tool that we have ever invented. I feel incredibly lucky to be at exactly the right place in Silicon Valley, at exactly the right time, historically, where this invention has taken form.

By the time I was a senior in high school, I knew I wanted to move to Silicon Valley and learn more about computers and the Internet. I just fell in love with technology and the potential of everything the Internet had to offer.