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Richard McCargar's avatar

My children are in what I call the "Goldilocks Zone" of 120 - 140. Very smart, and very stable.

I was not as stable, but by age 29, I had built a 3500 emp IC design/Mfg company with offices in the U.S., Europe and Asia.

There have been many brilliant people in my life. But almost invariably, as you approached my numbers, they were less stable. By stable, I don't mean unable to work. I worked 60-80 weeks for many years, traveled more than 200K miles for work, also for many years. But not as stable as I would have liked.

Everyone like me, has something in their background you can point to that should have been a clue what was coming..in my case, I was a "C" student who taught himself calculus to solve a problem, regularly up two or three days in a row reading and building models.

I've known quite a few people who love to say they "think outside the box", but can never give you an example.

I'll give you one. Having worked for 18 months in a 900 person factory in QC with only about six months of electronic background (basic electronics), my boss, a man with 20 years experience, tried to get a job with a new IC company. They turned him down. We did military biz at this co, and I asked him if he minded that I try to get that job.

He was very cool about it, "By all means, but don't be surprised when they don't hire you. You have a job here, don't worry about it." paraphrased.

I got the job and more than doubled my salary the day of the interview. How? I drove to a large electronic company we did biz with, asked the head of procurement (who knew me, barely), about helping me get that job. I'd learned the new company wanted to get qualified for military biz as an incentive to industrial companies to give them a try.

I asked this procurement man to give me a letter stating he'd provide an order IF I was able to get them qualified with the Redstone Arsenal. I knew that this new co was the only IC design/mfg co on the east co that did analog, digital and I2L in full and semi-custom, and they were interested in having a backup supplier in the event of a west coast problem.

I walked into the interview with an order, stipulating a chip in either a TOW, Maverick or Hellfire system IF I got the place qualified. The jobs was mine, inside about 18 months starting in the field.

Inside three years, I was co-owner and running the place. The learning curve would be insane for most people. It was not, for me.

Coup in an Asian country. Big companies abandoned their assembly facilities. I figured it was safe to go and try to poach one or more facilities to assemble our designs because they'd be desperate to appear as if it was safe to do business there. I made an offer, the investment advisor for that country looks at me and says, "I can have you shot before you get to the airport". Yes, I was shocked, but quickly asked what it was that I'd missed, and that I was sure we could come to a resolution..and if not, no one would follow me there, and they'd be dead in the water.

I got a facility. Not that many years later, I had a couple of strokes and a small heart attack. Lost that business.

People like me, for the most part, are not malevolent, but we can be too aggressive and too careless. But this, is how the lights are turned on...it's up to others, to keep the lights on.

Gates was far more malevolent than bright, but he was also very connected. Rambling rant, over.

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Carlos's avatar

This is the first substack I've read of yours. Fantastic insight and encapsulation.

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