Or in hindsight, maybe #1.
This man personally offered me a job once upon a time. In early 1989.
Jim Solomon
Bob Dobkin Linear Technology Jim Solomon – Cadence Design Systems
I turned him down. I foolishly turned him down. I turned him down in a most foolish manner as well. I was so foolish in the manner I turned him down that while he may not remember me, he might remember the incident.
I don’t even want to think about how my career would have gone had I been an early employee of Cadence. Even less do I want to think of the super-stars in my profession that I would have gotten to know and perhaps become friends with.
Cadence Design Systems began as an electronic design automation (EDA) company, formed by the 1988 merger of Solomon Design Automation (SDA), co-founded in 1983 by Richard Newton, Alberto Sangiovanni-Vincentelli, and James Solomon, and ECAD, a public company co-founded by Ping Chao, Glen Antle, and Paul Huang in 1982. SDA’s CEO Joseph Costello was appointed as CEO of the newly combined company.
Linear Technology Corporation was the premier American semiconductor company that designed, manufactured and marketed high performance analog integrated circuits.
I wasn’t in the right place at the right time to associate with Bob Widlar … but I was at the right place at the right time … in the wrong circumstances … to associate with Bob Pease and Jim Williams.
I did work with Jerry Wozniak … The Woz’s father … in the mid-80s.
My brush with greatness …
Had to get old to realize what a damn fool I can be.