Interview with Thomas A. Tombrello - Caltech Oral Histories

Tombrello–216
TOMBRELLO: Yes. But, you know, people do make mistakes. As perfect as I am. [Laughter].
That was one I just should not have lost. Hiring Elon Lindenstrauss was a long shot.
Lindenstrauss was an interesting guy. I don’t know where he is now [Princeton University—
ed.]—he’s won the Fields Medal, which I knew he was going to do. He was a very interesting
guy. When we discussed him on the IACC, some perceptive person—maybe Elliot Meyerowitz
[Beadle Professor of Biology], I can’t remember—said, “Look, there’s some missing years out of
his CV.” I said, “He’s an Israeli.” “Well, what does that have to do with it?” I said, “He was
doing some secret project. And one could guess it was either in intelligence or nuclear weapons
or something like that. He’s got a two-year gap in his history. He was doing something
interesting. But he’s not going to talk about it, and he’s not going to put it in his CV.” The
negotiations were fun—it was fun talking to him.
I remember another guy I was trying to hire. I was trying to steal him from Berkeley, as I
stole [Thomas B.] Graber and Ooguri from Berkeley. It’s harder to steal from Stanford. Guys
like [Douglas] Osheroff there are really tough. It was hard to steal from Harvard, because of
Larry Summers, who got personally involved in all these deals. Berkeley was dead easy. I
remember talking to this candidate whose wife was in finance. I said, “L.A. is not a finance
center. But, you know, I will even try my brother-in-law.” “Who’s your brother-in-law?” I said,
“Robert Merton.” He said, “Oh, I know who Robert Merton is. You don’t have to explain.” But
he was impressed that I was willing to just go to any ends to find his wife a job. What does it
take? It was like the Chiara Nappi thing with Witten. If I solve the problem of the family, I get
the whole package. If I don’t solve the problem, I probably get nothing. That was the case with
Maryam. I blew it. I blew it because I missed the thought that I could have hired that guy. He
was a good enough engineer to hire as an assistant professor. Wow! So it’s always a package
deal. You make somebody an offer they can’t refuse, and they come. Or it’s the wife or the
kids. I remember a guy I lost at Harvard—a condensed matter theorist. He dithered and he
dithered, and he couldn’t decide. Talking to him, I said, “How does your family feel about this?”
He says, “My little girl is three years old. Her opinion is in Southern California it’s warm.
There’s lots of sun. There’s Disneyland. Daddy, why aren’t we going?” I said, “Put your
daughter on the phone.” [Laughter]
ASPATURIAN: But he did not come?
http://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechOH:OH_Tombrello_T