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Intellectual Ventures is a company that invests in invention.

Nathan Myhrvold

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Nathan Myhrvold
Age: 65
Born: 1959
Born: January 1
Author
Computer Scientist
Engineer
Entrepreneur
Inventor
Mathematician
Paleontologist
Photographer
Seattle
Washington
Nathan Paul Myhrvold
Ventures
Venture
Invention
Intellectual
Company
Invests

More quotes by Nathan Myhrvold

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If I say I've got two versions of Word - that old one from 1982 that's perfect, with zero defects or the new one that's got all this cool new stuff, but there might be a few bugs in it - people always want the new one. But I wouldn't want them to operate a plane I was on with software that happened to be the latest greatest release!
Nathan Myhrvold
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A person's basic humanity is not governed by how he or she came into this world, or whether somebody else happens to have the same DNA.
Nathan Myhrvold
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Regardless of how it's done, transaction costs will continue to plummet as computers get more powerful. Low transaction costs are a wonderful thing if you're in the transaction business. They're wonderful for consumers too, making it cheaper and easier to buy things and creating new things to buy.
Nathan Myhrvold
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Chefs think about what it's like to make food. Being a scientist in the kitchen is about asking why something works, and how it works.
Nathan Myhrvold
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The best value for money in cooking equipment, in my mind, is first a digital scale and digital thermometer. They're both about $20. They help you cook so much more accurately that they're both enormously valuable.
Nathan Myhrvold
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Cooking is an art, but all art requires knowing something about the techniques and materials. Using modernist techniques, you get more control, and that allows you to be more artistic, not less!
Nathan Myhrvold
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If people don't find what you are doing threatening, then it is probably not very important.
Nathan Myhrvold
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If you had a really good - battery, it wouldn't matter that the sun goes down at night and the wind stops blowing sometimes. But at the moment, battery technology is nowhere near good enough to use at utility scale.
Nathan Myhrvold
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It's very hard for individual inventors to get paid. For the same reason that private equity is valuable - broadly, that's a good thing - in the case of patents, many that own them aren't in a good position to take the next step.
Nathan Myhrvold
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Why pay a fee for Internet content when a million free sites are just a click away? There's no incentive until people are too addicted to the Net to turn off their computers, yet are bored with what's available.
Nathan Myhrvold
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The first thing that is not obvious to people is global warming is a less-than-1% effect. It's like being shortchanged at the bank by a penny every dollar. Over a long period of time with lots of transactions, that piles up.
Nathan Myhrvold
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Most visions of extraterrestrial life are actually steeped in human hubris. The fictional extraterrestrials of 'Star Trek' or a hundred other space operas are less alien than many of my neighbors. And funny, the ones running the place are mostly WASPish men.
Nathan Myhrvold
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I was good at math and science, and I got lots of degrees in lots of things, but in a parallel universe, I probably became a chef.
Nathan Myhrvold
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Most decisions are seat-of-the-pants judgments. You can create a rationale for anything. In the end, most decisions are based on intuition and faith.
Nathan Myhrvold
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When I was about nine years old, I announced to my mother that I was going to cook Thanksgiving dinner. And I went to the library and got this whole pile of books. I'd love to say it all turned out great. It didn't. But, sort of, from that point on, whenever there was serious cooking at home, I was the one who did it.
Nathan Myhrvold
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Microsoft, Apple, Facebook all bought huge patent portfolios to further their strategic game. They're doing what I'm doing!
Nathan Myhrvold
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An efficient government is dangerous in the hands of the wrong man. Sadly, the right sort of man never seems interested in the job.
Nathan Myhrvold
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If you talk about sous-vide, then you have to talk about food safety, and microbiology, and heat.
Nathan Myhrvold
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I've never filed a patent lawsuit. I hope never to file a patent lawsuit. That may be unrealistic, but it would be great if I could avoid doing it... Lawsuits are a ridiculous way to do business.
Nathan Myhrvold
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With cult foods, there is an underlying assumption that the best cooking ideas came generations ago. Yet culinary innovation is nothing to be ashamed of. When a chef tells me he is cooking with his grandmother's recipe, I always wonder why. Did talent skip the past two generations?
Nathan Myhrvold