Interview with Thomas A. Tombrello - Caltech Oral Histories

Tombrello–265
TOMBRELLO: There were a lot of things that were fun. There were lots of things that were
frustrating. But for the most part I think we worked very well together to try to keep this within
the bounds of reality. To see that professors were not going to misuse their grad students. That
they were not going to mix money. We really had very few problems, almost no problems, with
it. I enjoyed it very, very much. I enjoyed working with Larry, who’s clearly a genius, because
before Larry came there had been so little entrepreneurial activity. But see, I was ready for it,
because I had been so surprised when I came back from Schlumberger. A friend of mine named
Neal Lane, who had taken over the National Science Foundation or was about to, came out to
campus, and we were having breakfast with a bunch of students. He asked them what they were
going to do. You know, I expected the standard answers: “I’m going to get a postdoc.” “I’m
going to go to a national research lab” “...going to an industrial research lab.” That sort of
covers all the students I’d ever known at Caltech. And then I heard a bunch of these kids say,
“I’m going to go out and start a business.” I thought to myself, “Where did that come from?
These two years I’ve been away, the whole world has changed.” I know why it had changed.
We had a trustee whose name is Gordon Moore, and he was running around giving talks at
Caltech saying it’s all right to be an entrepreneur. Now, did the faculty listen to it? Not at first.
But the students got the message immediately. The Pied Piper was leading those children away.
ASPATURIAN: What an interesting story.
TOMBRELLO: So when Larry came—
ASPATURIAN: Did David Goodstein bring in Larry?
TOMBRELLO: Goodstein had a lot to do with it—he and Everhart had the idea that this was
important, and I think Goodstein really ran the search, or found Larry. It was a brilliant choice.
Larry was good, not only in— Brilliant in picking me to help him. [Laughter] What can I say?
But no, he was good at talking to the faculty, figuring out which faculty members would fit into
this and how not to offend the ones that didn’t want to fit into it. Do you remember that Jack
Roberts was very much against the whole thing? Jack and I have been friends for a long time.
Jack said to me, “Tom, you’re wrong about this.” And I said, “Let me explain, Jack. We’ve got
a product at Caltech. We’ve got a fantastic product—it’s called our students, and we sell it. And
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