Bob Cringely Has Died I heard from a friend of the family that Bob passed away in his sleep early Saturday. Very sad news. Bob, who's real name was Mark Stevens, was an early employee of Apple and was best known for his PBS documentaries, especially "Triumph of the Nerds". He will be missed. |
He belongs to the old Silicon Valley. I wasn't there in those days and have never lived there, but I miss it.
It was back when SV was genuinely creative and largely positive in its attitude toward people and the future. It emerged from the ethos of places like SRI's "augmented human intelligence" lab and things like the Whole Earth Catalog and the Homebrew Computer Club.
Of course I'm well aware of the other origin story, the one that goes back to WWII and the defense industry. They're both true in different ways, but I think the ideas I mentioned above were the ones that came to dominate for a while.
I'd say until the mid-late 2000s.
I have this goofy speculation that the old Silicon Valley more or less went bankrupt in the dot.com crash in 2001. After that it was bought out and taken over by different interests with different goals. Probably bullshit, but it'd make a good novel plot or something.
FWIW, there is truth to what you're talking about.
I lived in (Los Gatos for a while) and around (Marin County for a while) SV during parts of the mid to late 1990s (into the very early 2000s) and the culture there was tech focused in a much more pure way than what came later.
Idealist 80s-90s hacker culture kids mixed with some older progressive graybeard types. Lots of people who learned how to code on their own using C64s or Apple IIs as teens and followed that into tech careers and were just happy to make a living doing what they would otherwise do for free.
Toward the end of the original dot-com boom and especially after it that culture got scattered to the winds by the influx of the finance bro types who had no particular love for tech but for the fact that everyone then saw it as the way to get rich.
I'm sure there was a different SV before my time there, and probably also somewhat parallel to my time there (just in different bubbles) but the place that I imagine that you imagine did exist for a while, I saw it in person.
It's especially tragic for his family as Bob had announced that his son Cole, aged 21, had passed away back in April. Condolences to all those who knew Mark, Cole, and their loved ones. RIP.
Watching him try (and fail) to build a composite airplane says so much about the allure of modern techniques (I won't spoil the end, but old-school gets the last laugh). I've been less than enthusiastic about modern composites ever since seeing this show.
Bob's attempt (and short temper) reveals a good deal of hubris on his part.
The documentary is a fascinating failure and a masterclass in attempting to salvage a show when the whole premise for the show completely collapses.
>...the WRT54G with Sveasoft firmware is all you need to become your cul de sac's wireless ISP. Going further, if a bunch of your friends in town had similarly configured WRT54Gs, they could seamlessly work together and put out of business your local telephone company.
https://web.archive.org/web/20040608142623/http://www.pbs.or...
I hope Leo Laporte and Steve Gibson cover his passing, they knew him.
twit dot tv
BTW, there are 2 "Robert X. Cringely", one owned by InfoWorld, one owned by Mark Stephens.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_X._Cringely
Born Mark Stephens
January 28, 1953 (age 73)
Apple Creek, Ohio, U.S.
Did an amazing job documenting the computer revolution and the internet revolution.