In early ‘05 I made my first trip back to the States after moving out here. Wanting to make the most of my time there, I booked a flight on Jetblue out to New York so that I could eat bagels with Jean and get stoned with Betty in her Brooklyn apartment.
Since it was a super early flight out of SFO, I had bought a 12 inch tuna sub from Subway the night before and stuffed it in the fridge. Jetblue doesn’t serve any food on their flights, so my plan was to chomp down on the sub for breakfast and then take a little nap so that I would be refreshed upon landing at JFK. This plan required me to hold onto the sandwich all through check-in and security, so you can imagine how intent I was on eating it once I got seated.
After I boarded, I walked down the aisle looking for my seat. Turned out I was stuck in the center seat between two middle-aged men. Both were already in the middle of a conversation about how great Jetblue was, and they nodded politely at me (as most people do in the States).
The two continued their conversation as we took off, and I couldn’t help but pick up one some of the stuff they were chatting about. The guy on my right had started his own business on infrastructure consulting. His firm apparently consulted governments in emerging markets on how to build roads. The guy on my left was on his way to New York to give some sort of talk on how brains work. He had also started his own company in the Bay Area, focusing on neuro-research. Or something like that; I was way too busy eating my sub, which at this point had become quite pungent. Of course, I didn’t care, and continued stuffing my face as these two men continued chatting with each other.
Then, I heard Road Guy ask Brain Guy about what he did before all the brain stuff:
“Oh, I worked for a company that sold one of my inventions.”
“Oh really? And what invention was that?”
“The Palm Pilot.”
“Oh!” Pause. Road Guy’s voice quivered with realization. “You started Palm! I’ve heard of you before!”
I continued eating my sandwich. Yes, I was sitting next to one of Silicon Valley’s eminent luminaries, eating a stinky tuna sub and undoubtedly getting crumbs on his lap. Yes, I could haved tried to make some sort of impression on him, maybe join in and provide my own unique insights into the ways the world and people can be bettered. Yes, I probably could have not eaten that sandwich and come off as the irrelevant ignoramus that I was.
But I did none of those things. I kept eating, and Road Guy even made a crack at my sandwich’s expense to Brain Guy Palm Inventor. Later, I figured that the least I could do was to not gulp the thing down in front of them as they clearly would have preferred not to have tuna bits flying about in the air. Guess you can take a guy out of Shanghai, but you can’t take the Shanghai out of him.
I thought about this today because I came across this Wired article on Palm Inventor. His name is Jeff Hawkins, and I know now that two years ago, he was on his way to New York to talk about his book, On Intelligence. Seems he’s the latest guy to take a crack at figuring out artificial intelligence. Cool stuff. If only his technology can instill some intelligence in all those folks here in Shanghai who crowd the subway door as people are getting off. Reading about how passionate and driven he has been in his life to pursue his interests, I wondered if, in that moment two years ago, he had similarly appreciated my laser focus on that Subway sub.
Nah, probably not.
