This is an essay series by Donald Tanguay, co-founder of Spring, based on his time at Google, Stanford, and MIT. Full bio at the end.
Story Time
I worked briefly with Ray Kurzweil, the American visionary technologist and entrepreneur, on a project called the Cybernetic Poet, an early AI system for analyzing written works and producing novel poetry.
To be sure, consumer applications of AI were nascent 30 years ago, and the simplistic language models produced a lot of garbage poems. But, for every 20 crap poems, there was one poem with good grammar, and when you squinted your eyes and opened your mind, the subject matter kinda made sense. Hey, we have an original Shakespearean sonnet!
Whatever your opinions about Ray, he imagines what could be and looks for how to make it happen.
The beginning of "I May Ask One" — A poem written by Ray Kurzweil's Cybernetic Poet in the late eighties and long before Chat GPT
As I got to know Ray, I also got to know his long-time business partner, Aaron Kleiner. You’ve probably never heard of Aaron. He doesn’t take the stage, he doesn’t write the books; but starving graduate-student that I was, I sent Aaron my billable hours, and he sent me the paychecks.
Ray and Aaron have been working together for over 50 years, since they were MIT roommates, and they started several very successful businesses. I realized two things about their long-term partnership: (1) that they both had very different roles to play, and (2) that both roles were essential to their mutual success. Ray demonstrated technological leadership, and Aaron managed the business.
Exercise: Now, before continuing, what are your current opinions about management and leadership?
What are the traits of a good manager?
What are the traits of a good leader?