I've heard him interviewed about his interest in cooking. He sounded like one of those fastidious geniuses who look at you like you're an insect - totally calculating, without a single molecule of empathy (you didn't know empathy had a molecule? well, it does).
I think with Intellectual Ventures he saw an opportunity to make a lot (more) money within the legal framework of the United States, and despite already having a great deal of money, he simply seized the opportunity. Money is nice, and more money is nicer. It's doubtful that he feels anything like remorse for the destruction his company has inflicted on the nation's innovators. No doubt he sees himself simply as a shrewd businessman who saw an opening and took it.
One of his rationalizations, if he is ever bothered to make one, might be, "Well, if I wasn't doing this someone else would be." Of course, that is true.
It's one of those times when I wish we lived in smaller communities, where people like Nathan would have to deal with the ire of the community - to look people in the eye, to see the hatred and the anger that his actions are causing. Barring that, the AIA is not enough, and we need legislation to put IV and it's ilk out of business for good. E.g. let's turn that hatred and anger that Myrvold never sees (and probably wouldn't care about if he did) into real political action to take his weapons away from him.
His book on cooking is called Modernist Cuisine, and is turning into something of a Landmark publishing/reference work. Its ~5 volumes and retails for ~$500 dollars.
So this is where the profits from the patent litigation goes:
Myhrvold started buying equipment for the research kitchen in the Intellectual Ventures lab. Much of the equipment was standard cooking equipment, but it also included items such as rotor-stator homogenizers, ultrahigh-pressure homogenizers, freeze-dryers, a 50 G centrifuge,[1] ultrasonic baths, and rotary evaporators.[9] The laboratory already included other high-tech and industrial equipment,[10] a 100-ton hydraulic press,[10] a large water-jet cutter, an electrical discharge machine, and automated milling machines.
I can see the connection with Heston Blumenthal in terms of the science of cooking etc.
Myhrvold and Wayt Gibbs, an executive editor at Intellectual Ventures who served as the editor-in-chief and project manager for the book, also started hiring writers and editors, research assistants, photo editors, and an art director. First hired was Chris Young, who had just stopped his work of leading the development kitchen in Heston Blumenthal's restaurant The Fat Duck in England.
That made me think of the bit in the Warren Buffet bio where he dines with the head of Sony (or some other Japanese firm) prepared by the CEO's personal chef, and basically loathes every minute of it and is dying for a burger and fries.
> One of his rationalizations, if he is ever bothered to make one, might be, "Well, if I wasn't doing this someone else would be." Of course, that is true.
Why would that be true? Nobody else is doing it at the scale of IV, despite nothing preventing it from happening. It's not because other people are capable of bad choices that you are excused for your own blunders. Ethics don't work that way.
The patent troll industry in aggregate last year collected around $22B in revenue. In aggregate it dwarves IV, although IV may be the biggest individual player. Legally-sanctioned evil on a giant scale...
My guess: Getting repeatedly cautioned and perhaps threatened by patent lawyers while CTO at Microsoft. To use the cliche, he could not beat them so he joined them. IV is essentially a patent law firm that is its own client, or a company legal department minus the company; it was initially funded out of his own pocket. In my experience very few business people like lawyers or litigation and no sensible business person would have been inclined to invest millions in an idea like IV. But a man with Microsoft money and a grudge to settle with the world of patents and patent lawyers... anything is possible when you have that much cash. Some guys build failed music museums shaped like melting guitars[1], others start acquiring low quality patents en masse, forming short-lived shell companies with cryptic names and threatening innovators with patent litigation.
Now that they are bringing in revenue a business person might see things differently; maybe IV looks like a sensible investment. But trolling is still trolling. As with a law firm, they rely on the patent system to make money yet they produce nothing. They rely on fear of litigation to drive their "business". How long can they keep up the charade?
1. Interestingly, he's no stranger to frivolous patent litigation either. However like his museum, his attempts at bogus-patent-based extortion failed.
> and no sensible business person would have been inclined to invest millions in an idea like IV.
Boy, you couldn't be more wrong. IV has raised $5.5 billion[0] from the likes of[1]:
* Adobe
* Amazon.com
* American Express
* Apple
* Cisco Systems
* Detelle Relay KG
* eBay, Inc.
* Google
* Microsoft
* Nokia
* Nvidia
* OC Applications Research
* SAP
* Sony Corp.
* TR Technologies
* Verizon
* Xilinx
* Yahoo
* Brown University
* Cornell University
* Grinnell College
* Mayo Clinic
* Northwestern University
* Stanford University
* University of Minnesota
* University of Pennsylvania
* University of Southern California
* University of Texas
* Allen SBH
* Bush Foundation
* Charles River Ventures
* Commonfund Capital Venture Partners
* Dore Capital
* Flag Capital
* Flora Family Foundation
* Hewlett Foundation
* Howard Hughes Medical Institute
* Legacy Ventures
* McKinsey and Co.
* Next Generation Partners
* Noregin Assets
* Reading Hospital
* Rockefeller Foundation
* Roldan Block NY
* Seqouia Holdings
* Skillman Foundation
* Sohn Partners
* Taichi Holdings
* TIFF Private Equity
* White Plaza Group
There seems to be a misunderstanding of who Intellectual Ventures are. Most people didn't know about them before the NPR stories that portrayed them as patent trolls (they are), but they are also well known as researches, as hiring a large number of great inventors and notable scientists, filing hundreds of their own patents for technologies developed in house, for inventing the mini-nuclear reactor that was spun out as Terrapower, for stratoshield - a proposed solution to global warming as featured in Freakanomics, for their mosquito gun based on star wars tech, for their battery research and also for making deals with over a hundred universities around the world for a right of first refusal on all new inventions.
They aren't only patent trolls, there is a lot more to the company - $1B p.a in revenue
IV started as an ideas/inventions marketplace. Myhrvold went to all of the large tech companies and pitch them on setting up a fund that would be like an OPEC for patents. Instead of each company individually fighting patent battles, they would invest in IV and that would give them access to an arsenal to help defend themselves. This did come from his experience with patents at Microsoft.
IV then went out and raised funds in a way similar to what VCs do - but instead of investing into tech companies they actively buy up patents and inventions on behalf of their fund LP's (Microsoft, Apple, etc. listed above). It is a way for these companies to defend themselves from patents and to outsource part of their R&D.
IV has purchased over 30,000 patents across their funds, have applied for another 2,000 or so themselves, have a network of 4,000 inventors in their marketplace and actively seek out inventors on their website[2].
Nick, check your facts. That is the picture now. But how did IV get started? An ex-Microsoftie used _his own money_ to acquire a critical mass of patents before anyone would pay attention to IV. None of those companies pledged funds for him to build a portfolio of mostly junk patents from scratch. He had to use his own money.
There is a pre-history of IV, before they had a website with press releases that can be cut and pasted into comments. None of those companies were signed on from day one, when IV's portfolio did not yet exist and was just an idea.
He did start it with his own money and did build up the initial pool himself, just like anybody else bootstrapped. I remember listening to him tell the story in an interview, I can't remember where (I also believe he mentioned that Bill Gates was personally invested, and an advisor). But above it was said that no sane company would invest in the idea of buying patents, when clearly a lot have.
What I am suggesting is that IV is not a rogue actor - they behave in the way they do with the consent, blessing and backing of many famous technology companies. They have, from all outward appearances, a very legitimate and profitable business model.
== Your missing the point, or at least part of it. It is akin to a protection racket. Those companies invest to not get sued, etc. So thats the sales pitch: invest, take a cut of the $$, and oh, btw IV wont sue you (as often) either.
The following is an oversimplification, but should give you an easy way to think about what IV is doing. It's oversimplified because IV is now in a position to pursue multiple patent strategies, including ones that make great PR: "Look, we're patenting the solution to malaria!" But let's focus on how they got started, their "bread and butter", how they actually make money.
The term "patent troll" came from an in-house lawyer for a large well-known IT company.
The idea is that small inventors or small companies sometimes with the help of NPE's or aggressive litigators would come after the large companies and ask them to "pay up".
Of course the reality is often that large companies are the only ones who are capable of practising the technology in these patents and actually producing products and services that people use. So to the large company with lots of cash, these threats are just trolling. The small guys, the NPE's and aggressive patent litigators trying to shake down the large companies don't produce anything. All they did was file receive a few (likely bogus) software patents. They are "patent trolls".
Now, obviously the definition has expanded, but now you know where it came from and the context.
Next an ex-MS CTO with considerable personal wealth has become so bothered by this (or intrigued, take your pick) that he decides instead fo trying to fix the system and solve this problem of trolling, he will stick himself into the space that the NPE's and the aggressive patent litigators occupy. He will be a middleman. The new middleman. One middleman to rule them all. And he will take his cut. They'll be no need to produce products. Of course, there's one problem with this idea. He does not have control of 100's or 1000's of patents.
Now, what nik seems to be missing is that no business is going to donate money or patents to an aspiring mega troll.
Large companies don't want to pay unless they have to; if there's no litigation threat then there's no reason to pay. Small inventors, universities, NPE's, etc. OTOH want payment; they are not going to donate their patents into a trolling pool without cash up front or some guarantee of payment. And as for VC, at the time, they had better things to invest in, and still do. One could argue they like the small guy with a great story and huge potential, not some tax collector on innovation that is by and large just a group of patent lawyers with no intention of producing anything.
_Our mega troll had to use his own money to get this idea off the ground._ He had to create a threat, a pool of patents that would otherwise be worthless on their own, by spending _his own money._ If this is such a savvy business idea then why did he have to take on the risk personally? And why isn't every wealthy geek jumping on the bandwagon and launching an IV clone? Why bother making products? Why not just be a middleman that produces nothing? I'll leave those questions for the reader. Here's a hint: Because no one, other than the trolls themselves, wanted to exacerbate an already vexing problem.
Of course, to the troll, the system is not broken. To the troll bogus software patents are currency. The only problem the troll has is getting people to pay for his worthless patents; our mega troll does this only by aggregating them into an impenetrable thicket (much larger and broader than any previsouly existing NPE) of remote potential infringement suits and hiding behind ephemeral shell corporations. It's worthless currency that would otherwise be ignored by anyone producing products and offering services (as his former employer routinely did), unless you threaten to sue them.
As with the software bug analogy in an above comment, what the IV founder did was to become part of the problem, inserting himself into the chain of contributors, in order to profit from it.
In an interview he said he was unpopular in high school and it didnt bother him, so being unpopular because of IV doesnt bother him either. He's like a bitter nerd maniacally extracting his revenge on the world for his unhappy high school years.
I don't buy that... and he knows he's villifying himself in the tech industry.
Perhaps I'm a bit of a romantic but I think he's doing it on purpose. If you know the game is rigged, and will have massive effects on the future of technological development, you have quite the motivation to show the flaws.
To anyone doubting me: think about it. We all know IV, these connections to shell corporations are new but they are also inevitable. Why wouldn't they play it slower? Why wouldn't they make sure there was no overlap?
These are technocrats; they know the smallest smudge can haunt them. Do you think the tracks were left by accident?
Arguably most of the tech industry (at least people over 25 or so) already hated him due to his role at Microsoft, so he's used to that.
If he is actually engaged in a "long troll" against the patent industrial complex, then he's worthy of approximately every science and economics prize in the world. I just don't think that's his style, though.
I'm happy this guy exists. Sure, we can use logic to deduce ideas aren't property. But not until a troll comes around do the masses pay attention. I hope he makes a fortune making a mockery out of the mockery.
Short but true. He has explained that, even though it doesn't really make sense, the current regulatory environment makes this business extremely profitable and it makes (business) sense to do it.
