ForbesOnTech

New Kevin Starr California History--a 24ct. Find

California, A new history of the Golden State by University of Southern California history professor, Kevin Starr, sparkles like bright gold pulled from an icy fork of the American River.

            I have a large collection of California history books, but nothing I’ve read so far comes close to the scope and brilliance of Starr’s latest work. This title covers it all, from the legend of Queen Calafia to the improbable ascent to the Governor’s chair of Austrian immigrant, Arnold Schwarzenegger. What makes Starr’s work so noteworthy is his ability to draw and tie the strings of this state’s history into a cohesive web that keeps you turning pages.

            There are a some writers that really define California: John Steinbeck, Hugh Bancroft and the lesser known Leland Fredrick Cooley are just a few.  Starr’s California history now gets the honored spot on the shelf in my office.

            When you look at 19^th Century California, it’s easy to be blinded by the avarice and dedication of many of its mid-1800’s immigrant stars:  John Sutter, the Central Pacific founders, Adolph Sutro, Thomas Larkin and others all are covered in this work.  Unlike the works of previous historians, Starr writes brightly and evenly of the state’s larger-than-life characters highlighting their accomplishments as well as their failures.

            In the current era of anti-illegal immigration, Starr subtly  points out that many of the state’s founders were themselves illegals until they assimilated. It’s a point that’s worth noting and something that is often forgotten in looking back at the history of the state.

            I was particularly impressed with Starr’s treatment of Mariano Vallejo, who played a key role in shaping California.

            I highly recommend Starr’s California history. It’s hard to put down and has the precise mix of fact and great writing that tells you what’s important about this state’s past while making you believe that there’s still gold out there, waiting to be found, across the hills of Placerville, throughout our still fertile agricultural holdings, and in the intellectual promise of the Golden State—Jim Forbes, unabashedly attired in my Bear Flag t-shirt on 05/15/2007.

The End For Author, David Halberstam

Adios to David Halberstam

David Halberstam, one time New York Timesman who gained fame with his book "The Best and The Brightest" on the Kennedy Administration and the early years of the Viet Nam conflict, was killed last weekend in a car wreck in Menlo Park, CA.

Halberstam had been lecturing journalism students at the University of California. He was a passenger in a car that was driven by one of the students. The student survived, Halberstam didn't.

Another bright literary beacon goes dark.

The car Halberstam was traveling in was struck broadside as it made a left turn onto Willow Road in Menlo Park. The author, who had just finished delivering a lecture to graduate journalism students and th public was on his way to interview retired quarterback Y.A Tittle in Palo Alto. Halberstam was pronounced dead at the scene of the accident. The cause of death was "blunt force trauma," according to one published report. 

The graduate journalism student who was driving Halberstam to his next interview, suffered a punctured lung, and is "pretty freaked out" according to his wife.

No doubt. No one remembers your last story, but get in an accident where your Pulitzer winning passenger is killed, and no one forgets it. Ever!

Halberstam's book "The Best and the Brightest" started me on a long path to try and understand a war I had fought in. I"m still reading and trying to comprehend all the nuances of the VietNam War, but an autographed copy Halberstam's book  has a prominent place on my bookshelf.

"Ship of Gold and The Deep Blue Sea"-- A Thoroughly Remarkable Book

I’ve just finished the most remarkable book that combines history and technology and entrepreneurs I’ve ever read. It’s called “Ship of Gold and the Deep Blue Sea,” and the author—Gary Kinder—gets the featured spot on my shelf of books about entrepreneurs because of this book.

            Ship of Gold has been out for a while,9like almost a decade) but I wanted to read it after watching a PBS show on the search for and excavation of the SS Central America in the deep Atlantic off the Carolina coast.

It’s been my experience that technology entrepreneur books are either dry as Mojave dust, or just too fawning. This book is neither; plus it has an excellent section on how the entrepreneur who located and salvaged the wreck raised money using a limited partnership.

            What makes Ship of Gold radically different from the pablum-like content of most books about entrepreneurs is the author’s research into the passengers and cargo of the Central America, which sank in 1857 hurricane season carrying several hundred souls and a cargo of gold coins and bullion pulled from the California gold fields. Also, the sections on seamanship and technology are so good as to be exemplary.

            The book expertly weaves background on the boat’s passengers, the journey northward from Havana to the point where it sank, and the remarkable seamanship of the Central America’s crew and those of passing ships that rescued many of female and children passengers with the story of an eclectic entrepreneur and his search for and salvage of the ship and its golden cargo.

            My God, what a read! If you’re interested in California history, entrepreneurs or marine archaeology, jump over to Amazon right now and buy this book. I wish all books about entrepreneurs were as good as Ship of Gold and the Deep Blue Sea. —Jim Forbes on 04/16/2007.

New John Sutter Bio-- Excellent and Recommended

I've got two books stacked on my nightstand now:  an excellent new John Sutter biography and a great account of the story of the search for the SS Republic and its cargo of Gold.

Since the California history bug fist infected me more than 50 years ago, I've read at lest seven biographies of California settler/founder and scoundrel John Sutter. But the latest, written by University of Oklahoma history professor Albert Hurtado, is the  best I've ever read on the Swiss Immigrant who founded present day Sacramento at the dawn of the Gold Rush and managed to fail at most things he attempted, despite being at the center  of California's most prosperous era.

The more you read about Sutter, the more difficult it is to accurately categorize him, other than as the consummate con artist entrepreneur. Here's a man who deserts his wife and five children in Switzerland as the prospect of debtor's prison looms ever larger and comes to America where he constantly repeats past mistakes of borrowing and making promises he's unlikely to make good on. Yet at the same time, Sutter is the first person eastern immigrants see  as they  shiver their way down the Sierra's western slopes, hungry and desperately in need of supplies, freshened livestock and large measures of hope. And Sutter was there to re provision the immigrants, give the tired travelers a place to stay and feed for their livestock. And all the while Sutter has promised the Mexican governor of Alta California that he would protect the eastern frontier from illegal immigrants (in exchange for which he was given one of the largest land grants ever as well as considerable credit).

Kind of like asking the fox to guard the hen house. Professor Hurtado documents Sutter's travels, and his need to project prosperity throughout the book. And he does an incredible job of illustrating virtually every facet of this pioneering California entrepreneur. The biography is so well written that I now feel I have a better understanding of John Sutter than I have at anytime in my life. I've had a difficult time putting this book down at night. Sutter's story is that compelling.

It would be easy to dismiss John Sutter as merely one more  19th century con man if it weren't for his many acts of charity to American immigrants and illegal invaders (John C Fremont comes immediately to mind) alike. And when the humanitarian promissory note came due, after word reached Sutter's Fort that the Reed Donner Party was in dire straights up in the Sierras. It was Sutter who helped organize, provision and launch the relief party that saved the storied immigrant party. Sutter is not without humor in this biography. Recounting his part in the rescue of the Reed Donner party, Sutter darkly noted that the immigrants "killed and ate my horses, my mules and my two good Indians."

The ultimate irony of John Sutter's life is richly documented by professor Hurtado. At the end of his life, Sutter was begging the US Congress to be paid for his charity to US citizens who were crossing to California. John Sutter, having exhausted a small pension from the state of California, died almost penniless in a Washington DC hotel room, after the US Senate failed to pass a bill that included provisions for a $50,000 dollar payment to Sutter for his helping American immigrants settle in California. 

The detail in this Sutter biography is as deep and as rich as some of the gold veins that were discovered several score miles upstream of Sutter's Fort. I can't recommend Hurtado's biography enough.   Give it a read.-- Jim Forbes, a proud son of California. 02/07/2007.

Technology Books, Gimme a Break

I have a vested interest in technology. I read a lot and for the last severa; years I’ve plowed through a lot of books on this topic.  But I haven't read anything since "Soul of the New Machine",  "Fire In The Valley” and “Hackers” that really knocked my socks off.

It really is a shame, since it’s a great topic with a growing audience. By and large, technology books suck.  While most technology books do a good job of laying a foundation and framing a story almost none give me insight into future additions s company might make.  And that’s the information I need to make decisions about investing some of my retirement funds in technology companies, or in buying their products.

Two examples:

+Books about Apple Computer Inc.  I want to know what Apple is working on now. The Macintosh brand is aging and although Apple has done a first rate job on operating system software,  they have to be working on new hardware. Also, as a potential investor in Apple I really want to know who its chairman, Steve Jobs, is grooming as a successor.  After all, even Steve Jobs has that fatal flaw of being mortal. So, I want to know what he’s looking for in the next generation of Apple leadership and where those candidates are now as well as what they think.

( n.b. My best friend is Jeffrey S.  Young,  author of two unauthorized bios on Jobs. Watching Jeff struggle with this topic and Steve Jobs’ ballistic reaction to the publication of his last book, has helped me to understand how difficult the job of writing about the future of a company and making a living really can be.)

+Let's now turn to the one company that begs a great book, Microsoft. What we've seen so far are a middling succession of tomes focusing on Bill Gates.  Guess what? As much as I respect Gates, he's not the only person at Microsoft who makes key strategic decisions. There's also Steve Balmer, who has been a key decision maker there for more than 20 years. If you really want to have some fun, build a matrix of Microsoft’s strategies then research the name of the executive in charge of those. I suspect that Balmer’s name will appear more often  than BillG’s.  But this is barely noted in Microsoft books. One of the strategic assets of Microsoft is its Reseasrch and Development DNA. What's not been well documented in any of the books so far is  the potential effect institutional DNA on future products, including hardware. One quick example of this is t his week’s Origami hardware announcement. Microsoft and third parties have been working on this for a long time and Bill Gates has described this hardware in various keynotes for the last decade.

I'm waiting anxiously for a good book on Microsoft. One that cuts through the bullshit Silicon Valley hype ( most often generated by crybaby competitors who have yet to best Microsoft in gthe market place.

  Come to think of it, there are some other books I’d love to read:

+"Crybabies dot com: the story of how a small group of companies spent millions in legal and PR fees to try and beat Microsoft with inferior products using the US Courts."

+ "Venture Capital Train Wrecks: How monied investors supplanted technological savvy with spreadsheets."

+"Lessons From The Opium Wars: Why you need to think carefully before putting your best engineered products in one the world’s foremost klyptocracies."

+"Sun Microsystems: hardware or software company?" By the time that is written I'll probably read my electronic version of it on a "Sparcintosh" PC.

+Mt Olympus, The Early Years. Many of the current technology titans came out of the  Stanford Graduate Business School from 1978 to 1982. And, a lot of them failed before succeeding, a tradition established by, Leland Stanford during the California Gold Rush.

+Clean Tech: Are Consumers ready for a high performance hydrogen powered Hindenberg parked in their driveway?

Hey anyone can be a critic, so that’s it for now from a high speed wireless link going from my drop dead reliable notebook/tablet PC to My Blog from rural northern San Diego County on a very rainy cold Friday morning

Disclosure statement and gratuitous plug of a buddy's book : I am the Godfather of Alistair James Young, the son of Steve Jobs' biographer Jeffrey S. Young. I recommend you read:

iCon Steve Jobs : The Greatest Second Act in the History of Business by Jeffrey S. Young and William L. Simon (Hardcover - May 23, 2005)

Jeff tends a micro vineyard in Rescue, CA as an avocation and his efforts at wine making appear to be getting better every year. I'm also credited with providing information and background to technology authors in four books.