Interview with Thomas A. Tombrello - Caltech Oral Histories

Tombrello–266
we sell them high.” And I said, “You know, the markets where we used to sell the students are
changing. There are not as many places you can sell a professor. Research labs for industry are
disappearing. The national labs have no vision for the future.” I said, “There’s one new
market—the startup game; the small companies.” I said, “We’ve got to have a market for these
kids. And this is the market, and it’s going to pay off. I don’t know if it will pay off in the
companies we start at Caltech. But it’s going to pay off in the long run when there are going to
be more people like Gordon Moore, and they’re going to end up giving us a lot of money
because they got their ideas here.” Well, it had happened with [Arnold] Beckman, of course,
who developed the pH meter here. Gordon didn’t develop anything here, but Gordon’s been
extremely grateful to Caltech. Jack said, “Well, I’m not sure I agree with you, but, you know, I
understand the motivation that we’re doing it for the students.”
And it happens two ways with the students. They see it going on around them and they
know it’s OK. And of course, they develop the kind of context they need to actually try to do it.
Caltech tries to help them with it. I had a student—Michael Woods, who graduated a few years
ago—who had an idea for a company. I’m a Gnome, which I consider one of the great honors I
have—belonging to the Gnomes at Caltech. I said, “Hey, come to the Gnome Christmas party; I
want to show you how to network.” Within probably an hour of just walking around with a
drink in his hand, talking to people, he got all kinds of ideas of how you begin to start a
company. Free, hey! This is seriously good advice. They got very interested in him, because
they’re very devoted to Caltech. So the culture changed, and it changed in a way that I’d like to
think will never go back, because it opens up a whole new range of possibilities for our students.
And, in addition, Caltech has made a hell of a lot of money off Tech Transfer. There have been
no scandals. I think I had a lot to do with no scandals.
ASPATURIAN: You’ve kept things on the straight and narrow.
TOMBRELLO: Larry always listened. Larry never disagreed about that. We wanted to avoid
having to explain why something bad had happened. They’ve now sort of turned it over to [vice
provost] Mory [Morteza] Gharib, in the provost’s office, and I hope he does it well. It’s not a job
that you spend every waking moment thinking about, but there’s so much to lose that you do
have to pay attention to it. You just have to have a sensitive nose for, oh, maybe you should look
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