As many of you know, one of the great computer industry pioneers died yesterday. While I used to work down the street from 1 Disk Drive (the Seagate headquarters), I never got to meet Al. I wish I had.
A great way to get an idea of what kind of person he was is from an interview he did years ago with Jill Wolfson at the San Jose Mercury News and Bruce Phebus for the Tech Museum of Innovation.
There’s some Shugart great quotes in there, like:
On education: “[Kids are] learning all kinds of junk stuff. They gotta learn how to read and write, learn how to communicate, and learn how to be computer literate. Beyond that, they ought to do what they like to do.”
On common sense: “There’s not enough logic any more. Common sense is dead.”
On the web: “If you find somebody who spends four hours a day surfing the web, they’re really not a very balanced person.”
On politics: “We’ve got to get rid of the Republicans and the Democrats and the lawyers and elect only independents.”
Interview link here.
He was a great man and he will be missed.
Alex Eckelberry