Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, Ph.D.

I study people, technology, and the worlds they make

Month: April 2012

A brief rant on Felix Salmon and philanthropy in Silicon Valley

April 29, 2012 / / 1 Comment

I love Felix Salmon’s work. He’s one of the best financial reporters in the business, someone who’s got tons of insight and an ability to explain complicated, obscure but important things to a general audience.

So I was pained to see him get a small but significant detail wrong in his piece about Marc Andreessen. Among Andreessen’s achievements, Felix writes, is that “he’s dragging Silicon Valley into the world of philanthropy, where it’s historically been very weak.”

Umm. No. Absolutely wrong.

Dave Hewlett and Bill Packard, and their families, have been philanthropists for decades. The value of their gifts to Stanford University exceed the Stanford family’s original endowment (or so I was told by some development folks there). The Lucille Packard Children’s Hospital (where both my children were born), the open space trusts that have kept a significant part of Silicon Valley from turning into places to park Range Rovers in front of McMansion… not to mention a variety of locally-famous schools, charitable foundations, etc. etc. ad infinitum- have all benefitted from the work of Hewlett, Packard, the Varian family, and many others.

Too elitist? Fundraisers for schools sound too self-serving? Maybe Santa Clara U.’s social innovation prizes, and its goal of improving the lives of a billion poor by 2020, is a bit more to one’s liking.

Indeed, you might make the case that Marc learned about the value of philanthropy from his spouse, whose family real estate business shaped Silicon Valley, and whose family foundation has shaped Silicon Valley in different ways.

I think the idea that the Valley isn’t interested in philanthropy comes from extrapolating the example of Steve Jobs, who famously was uninterested in it. However, what you have to realize is how much Steve was the exception to the rule; indeed, you’d have to be someone of Steve Jobs’ caliber (in other words, only Steve Jobs) to get away with it.

So Marc’s not inventing a new tradition. If anything, he’s doing a great job of showing how new money legitimates itself by imitating old money.

And yes, here in the Valley money made selling klystrons and calculators– anything before about 1990– is Old Money. Those dollars might as well have been printed by Rembrandt.

This is how you review a book

April 25, 2012 / / Comments Off on This is how you review a book

Charles Pierce’s review of Ross Douthat’s Bad Religion (shorter version: the Sixties sucked) is a master class in how to take apart a book in a manner that respects the subject, but gives the author the flogging they deserve. This may be my favorite part:

[N]owhere does Douthat so clearly punch above his weight class as when he decides to correct the damage he sees as having been done by the historical Jesus movement, the work of Elaine Pagels and Bart Ehrman and, ultimately, Dan Brown’s novels. Even speaking through Mark Lilla, it takes no little chutzpah for a New York Times op-ed golden child to imply that someone of Pagels’s obvious accomplishments is a “half-educated evangelical guru.” Simply put, Elaine Pagels has forgotten more about the events surrounding the founding of Christianity, including the spectacular multiplicity of sects that exploded in the deserts of the Middle East at the same time, than Ross Douthat will ever know, and to lump her work in with the popular fiction of The Da Vinci Code is to attempt to blame Galileo for Lost in Space.

Fantastic. As good as Adam Gopnik’s epic takedown of The Matrix, Reloaded. It’s made more impressive by the fact that you get the sense that Pierce really knows what he’s talking about. Here are two very different lines that each in their way are quite illuminating:

He describes the eventual calcification of the sprawling Jesus movement into the Nicene Creed as “an intellectual effort that spanned generations” without even taking into account the political and imperial imperatives that drove the process of defining Christian doctrine in such a way as to not disturb the shaky remnants of the Roman empire. The First Council of Nicaea, after all, was called by the Emperor Constantine, not by the bishops of the Church. Constantine — whose adoption of the Christianity that Douthat so celebrates would later be condemned by James Madison as the worst thing that ever happened to both religion and government — demanded religious peace. The council did its damndest to give it to him. The Holy Spirit works in mysterious ways, but Constantine was a doozy. Douthat is perfectly willing to agree that early Christianity was a series of boisterous theological arguments as long as you’re willing to believe that he and St. Paul won them all….

[Douthat is] yearning for a Catholic Christianity triumphant, the one that existed long before he was born, the Catholicism of meatless Fridays, one parish, and no singing with the Methodists. I lived those days, Ross. That wasn’t religion. It was ward-heeling with incense.

“We aren’t looking for blood any longer. We’re just looking for music.”

April 24, 2012 / / Comments Off on “We aren’t looking for blood any longer. We’re just looking for music.”

This 1968 profile of The Band is great. The last two lines of this Robbie Robertson quote really speak to me.

"We were so exhausted that everybody said this was a time of rest. When we went up to Woodstock, we stopped listening to music for a year. We didn't listen to anything but what you didn't have to listen to, like opera. That's why we couldn't play things like the Monterey Pop testival. We weren't – and we aren't – looking for blood any longer. We're just looking for music."…

The Band sings in the rough-hewn harmonies of honest mountain air. The music from Big Pink has the taste of Red River cereal. It has the consistency of King Biscuit flour. It rings with the now-ancient echo of John R, broadcasting from Nashville over Radio Station WLAC, 1510 on the: dial, its signal faintly received but eagerly listened to by an audience that took root in Stratford, Ontario, and Elaine, Arkansas, all with the same passion…. If it sounds traditional, the reason is that it has nothing to do with fads. If it sounds gritty, the reason is that it's full of road dust. If it sounds real, the reason is that it is….

It is music which comes from a band that has nothing but music to offer. The Band doesn't even have a name.

Thomas Frank on being “too smart to fail”

April 19, 2012 / / 1 Comment

Thomas Frank has a terrific essay in The Baffler about the failure of experts in the dot-com bubble, the war in Iraq, and the housing and credit crisis, and about

our failure, after each of these disasters, to come to terms with how we were played. Each separate catastrophe should have been followed by a wave of apologies and resignations; taken together—and given that a good percentage of the pundit corps signed on to two or even three of these idiotic storylines—they mandated mass firings in the newsrooms and op-ed pages of the nation. Quicker than you could say “Ahmed Chalabi,” an entire generation of newsroom fools should have lost their jobs….

What I didn’t understand was that these were moral failures, mistakes that were hardwired into the belief systems of the organizations and professions and social classes in question. As such they were mistakes that—from the point of view of those organizations or professions or classes—shed no discredit on the individual chowderheads who made them. Holding them accountable was out of the question, and it remains off the table today. These people ignored every flashing red signal, refused to listen to the whistleblowers, blew off the obvious screaming indicators that something was going wrong in the boardrooms of the nation, even talked us into an unnecessary war, for chrissake, and the bailout apparatus still stands ready should they fuck things up again.

I’m afraid any book about the future and prediction has to take into account the transformation, on a large and very public scale, of being wrong into a badge of honor, and the world-view that has been created around it.

“It was as if, after” an epidemic, “the only political reaction was a popular uprising to prevent the manufacture of antibiotics”

April 18, 2012 / / Comments Off on “It was as if, after” an epidemic, “the only political reaction was a popular uprising to prevent the manufacture of antibiotics”

Michael Lewis interviews himself about the Occupy movement.

The chief cause of the financial crisis was what the government didn’t do (regulate) rather than what it did (subsidize homeownership), and so it seemed strange to me that, until now, the most potent political reaction to the financial crisis has been an antigovernment backlash. It was as if, after some infectious disease killed a million people, the only political reaction was a popular uprising to prevent the manufacture of antibiotics.

The man is a genius.

RIP Tennison

April 17, 2012 / / Comments Off on RIP Tennison


on the bed, via flickr

Last night our cat Tennison died. She was 17.

IMG_4480
with my son, via flickr

A couple weeks ago she started eating less, then stopped altogether; I fed her by hand for a few days, but after a while she lost interest in that as well.

I thought about taking her to the vet, but she didn’t show any signs of being uncomfortable or in any pain. I couldn’t feel any tumors or see anything wrong. She didn’t even seem particularly hungry. She just seemed ready to be done.


under the patio furniture, via flickr

I would not have imagined seventeen years ago that she and her brother would be with me this long, or play such a role in my life. I got them at the Berkeley pet shelter, in the summer of 1995, when they were just a few weeks old. I had been house-sitting some friends’ cats, and discovered that I liked their company, and became desensitized to them after a while, so I went looking for my own. There they were.

After she stopped eating she just did what she’s done for the last couple years, which is sleep pretty much constantly. Sometimes I thought she was spending more time in her box, or on the couch, awake. Though I could never be quite sure if her behavior was changing, or I was paying more attention to her.


reading my books, via flickr

A couple months after getting them, I asked out a fellow Davis historian I’d known for the past year. We were engaged a couple months later. I don’t think it’s a coincidence. Getting the cats made clear how much better life could be when you’re not alone.

A few days I ago I noticed that her voice was hoarser, and she had trouble speaking. Not that she was ever a great talker. I started spending more time carrying her around. She was moving very slowly, and I wanted her close by.

Occasionally I (rather selfishly) thought, I’m almost finished with the book, so don’t mess it up by dying now. Perhaps it’s wrong to think that she could sense that I was too focused on the book, and had enough energy to wait for me to finish.


taking over the computer, via flickr

After I sent it off on Sunday, she seemed to decline more rapidly.

Yesterday we spent part of the day in the garage (she walked in while I was working there), then, as we’d done for the last few days, I put her up on a patio chair in the afternoon, and sat beside her while I read. In the evening I brought her inside, and tried to feed her something. She wasn’t interested.

Film noir cat
film noir cat, via flickr

She went over to the water dish, and spent a few minutes there. I could swear at one point she was staring at herself in the bottom of the metal bowl.

My last picture of Tennison
the last picture, via flickr

I kept her with me on the couch, then when she was tired of that, I put her in the box with her brother. Occasionally I stroked her fur. Sometimes she purred a bit, but mainly she just lay there. She didn’t seem to have the strength or desire to move. It felt to me like she was winding down.

When I went to bed, I put her on the foot of the bed, where the cats have slept for years.

At some point during the night she got down, went into the hallway, stretched out, and died.

Second reflections on writing

April 15, 2012 / / 1 Comment

A while ago I wrote a piece about writing for the trades. As someone who’d written for academic audiences, and for corporate and government clients, it was interesting to take on the challenge of writing a book for a popular audience.

I just finished the first draft of the manuscript- as in, sent it off to my editor and agent a couple hours ago- and while it’s all still fresh, thought I’d spend a little more time on what I’ve learned about writing.

IMG_6625
via flickr

The single most important thing is, be organized. The reason I was able to write this draft in a year was that I started the process with a strong, well-organized outline- an outline that I took very seriously, because it was the basis of my book contract. So that short-circuited all that screwing around you do trying to find the perfect structure. I had one that the publisher liked, and so I was damn well going to stick with it.

Then on a daily basis, this means: organizing your goals for the week, listing out the sections you’re going to write, and generally spending as much time as you need to be clear about what you’re going to write- so long as you actually write it. There’s always the danger that this kind of prep becomes a substitute for actual word production. Watch out for that.

It also meant always setting up the coffee the night before, and organizing your workspace before bed so you could just sit down and be ready to go.

These are little things, but they make tangible your commitment to the project.


via flickr

Another is to seek solitude. Turn on Freedom, or LeechBlock, or whatever. Put on the headphones. Before they exist on paper, good words live in a very quiet space, that you can only really reach in solitude. Of course you need to share your work in writing groups, with editors, and (you hope) a very big public. But in order to have ideas good enough to share, you need to seal yourself from everything but the words.

It’s like how monastics describe the role of silence in contemplation of the divine. A common theme in monastic practice is that you cannot hear the voice of God, or achieve Enlightenment or satori, or see the ultimate truth, until your soul is quiet and ready. God does not make himself heard over the din. You have to listen for Him.


via flickr

Another thing that I found really helpful was to stop for the day in mid-thought, or with one more sentence in the paragraph. It had to be something I knew I wouldn’t forget, but having that as the first thing I did the next morning really helped me get started. The beginning is always the hardest part, and so if you can make the start of each writing day easier by actually knowing exactly what you’re going to say, you’ll make your life easier.


via flickr

I now think that after years of writing, there’s a more direct connection between whatever parts of my mind generate good ideas, and the part of my mind that controls my hands. There’s a relationship between the physical act of writing and the “mental” act of creating that is not merely linear: I don’t have ideas and then write them down. I have ideas because I am writing.

So it’s absolutely essential that I spend time at the keyboard.


via flickr

And I needed something to make it easier, because I was getting up in the pre-dawn hours and writing for an hour or two before anyone else woke up. (Even the dog stayed asleep and didn’t follow me out to the living room.) I am absolutely NOT a morning person, but it made a big difference to have that time to myself, and to write in a state where I was actually to tired to distract myself. My semi-conscious brain was better able to stay on target, and whatever good ideas were bubbling up from my subconscious had an easier time reaching the calmer surface of my mind.


via flickr

This was a complete change from the way I normally write and live. I’m naturally a late sleeper, and so it took real will for me to get up early. But it really did work. I was actually taken by surprise. I figured that having some words under my belt before I took the kids to school would be a psychological boost. What I didn’t expect was that the very early morning would actually be a good time to write. But it turns out it was. Everyone should experiment with writing on a different schedule, or in a different way, to see if there are things that work better for them.

Thus endeth the lesson. For now.

“Our future is now being planned by people who seem to put their emotional comfort ahead of making decisions based on real… information”

April 6, 2012 / / Comments Off on “Our future is now being planned by people who seem to put their emotional comfort ahead of making decisions based on real… information”

Eric Garland has a great piece in The Atlantic about quitting his job as a futurist.

I am not quitting this industry for lack of passion…. The problem is, the market for intelligence is now largely about providing information that makes decision makers feel better, rather than bringing true insights about risk and opportunity. Our future is now being planned by people who seem to put their emotional comfort ahead of making decisions based on real — and often uncomfortable — information. Perhaps one day, the discipline of real intelligence will return triumphantly to the world's executive suites. Until then, high-priced providers of "strategic intelligence" are only making it harder for their clients — for all of us — to adapt by shielding them from painful truths….

So what's gone wrong? The consolidation of industries and increased power of the state means that the future is driven less by market trends or new technologies, and more by the internal politics of big corporations and regulatory agencies. But in addition,

Strategic intelligence is more and more like reading the Harvard Business Review through a fun house mirror. Sure, people use the words strategy, future, and foresight, but they mean something quite different.

In my experiences, and based on what my colleagues in the field tell me, executives today do not do well when their analysts confront them with challenging, though often relatively benign, predictions. Confusion, anger, and psychological transference are common responses to unwelcome analysis….

For too many business and government executives, foresight is a luxury that is hardly necessary in this new "hypercompetitive" post-crisis world. Perhaps it's always been superfluous, we just didn't notice. The study of the future used to be easier to sell, maybe because the analysis usually predicted the growth of the consumer economy or the next great gadget. But the future is no longer nearly as palatable, and the customers are less interested. That's too bad, because companies and governments still need help planning for the future. But it takes discomfort, courage and humility to face that future, and who wants to pay for bad news?

Clearly my book on The Future: What We Can Know, What We'll Never Know, and What We Don't Want to Know, should be next on my agenda.

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