Nothing very exciting occurred last week; I was, however, quite busy. On Monday I met with Dean Sullivan to talk about the Rady School’s activities in employee ownership, and to get his ideas on the role that the Beyster Institute can play. I made it clear to the Dean that I want my support to the Rady School be used to promote employee ownership based programs rather than entrepreneurship, which is the primary interest of the Rady School.
I met with Peter Economy on Monday and again today on the topic of putting together a new book on Network Solutions. We are putting together a team to do it. It’s going to be tough and political to successfully trace all the way from the origins of ARPANET, through two owners of NSI in the early days — Griggsby and McHenry — through SAIC and Verisign’s ownership, and then through two different private equity owners. Getting all the facts and figures correct — and getting the key players to agree on the facts — will be a major challenge. I think that we’re up to it, but it makes the effort we put into the SAIC Solution book look like child’s play.
On the 4th of July, we traveled out to Ralph Callaway my assistant’s house and had a very nice time. We returned home and missed the fireworks — we’re too old for that, although last year we had the privilege of watching the fireworks at the Battery in New York City.
— Bob