I started working when I was 14 (I lied about my age) and counting four years in the Air Force I’ve worked in 12 jobs. I left each one of them when I was bored, ready to move on, got fired, or learned as much as I can. There was only one job that I [...]
Filed under: Air Force, Technology | 13 Comments »
I pulled a few pranks in the military, but the one that got pulled on me took years off of my life. Alone in the Cockpit There isn’t anything cooler for a 19-year old then getting into the cockpit of a fighter plane. While most of my time was spent in the shop repairing electronic [...]
Filed under: Air Force | 13 Comments »
I thought today was an appropriate time to tell this story. I’m hoping the Statute of Limitations has run out. ————- As I’ve gotten older, I realized that one of the skills I have is pattern recognition across large data sets. When I was young, I didn’t have much data. So back then I constructed [...]
Filed under: Air Force | 8 Comments »
I’m sitting next to the fireplace in my favorite chair listening to holiday music, looking at the ocean and making occasional attempts to “help” get ready for Christmas dinner. We went for a hike checking out our new trail signs and playing “spot the bobcat.” Our kids are home for the school break, some friends [...]
Filed under: Air Force, Family/Career | 6 Comments »
One of my first posts (here) was learning about bats, moths and electronic countermeasures in natural systems in Thailand in the middle of the War in Vietnam. Catching up on my back issues of Science magazine all I could do was smile when I read the title of an article in the July 17th issue: [...]
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Part of marketing is the ability to communicate a message to thousands of people and convince them to believe your version of reality. When I was 19 I accidentally had a test run of my ability to do so. I created havoc at an air force base by convincing thousands of airman that gravity would be [...]
Filed under: Air Force | Tagged: Steve Blank, Electonic Warfare | 24 Comments »
This is Part VI of how I came to write “The Secret History of Silicon Valley“. This post makes a lot more sense if you look at the earlier posts as well as the video and slides. —————- The next piece of the Secret History of Silicon Valley puzzle came together when Tom Byers, Tina Selig and [...]
Filed under: Air Force, Secret History of Silicon Valley, Technology | Tagged: Steve Blank, Signals Intelligence, Fred Terman, Electonic Warfare, World War II | 17 Comments »
This is post II of how I came to write “The Secret History of Silicon Valley“. 1974. The Vietnam war was winding down. After been stationed at three fighter bases in Thailand (Ubon, Udorn and Korat) and working on Electronic Warfare suites on F-4’s, A-7’s, F-105’s and AC-130’s, I got orders to report to a [...]
Filed under: Air Force, Secret History of Silicon Valley | Tagged: Steve Blank | 10 Comments »
About a month ago I had one of the strangest phones call of my life. “Steve my name is Donald xx, and I’m the head of external affairs of the CIA’s venture capital firm and we’d like you to keynote our conference.” CIA? “Do you mean the Culinary Institute of America? And you’d like me [...]
Filed under: Air Force, Secret History of Silicon Valley | Tagged: Steve Blank | 14 Comments »
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