Cal vs. Stanford: EDAC vs. Itself
There's no doubt in my mind that there's a certain level of acrimony that rattles around within the EDA establishment, particularly within EDAC. Having said that, let me be perfectly clear. I'm not a member of EDAC, I don't work for an EDA company, and I just enjoyed a sumptuous dinner courtesy of the Electronic Design Automation Consortium. So what I'm about to say is either in the category of "I don't know what I'm talking about," or in the category of "biting the hand that feeds me."
Tonight, the annual Kaufman Award Dinner played itself out at the Marriott Hotel in Santa Clara. Unfortunately, today we had the first rain of the season here in the Bay Area. The freeways were slick, the end of Daylight Savings meant it was dark by 6 PM, and the traffic everywhere was a mess. I ended up slogging through an endless river of brake lights and stop-and-go fellow travelers to get to the Marriott. By the time I finally reached the hotel, it was past 7 PM and I had missed cocktails. Folks were already halfway through their salads when I finally sat down in one of the few remaining seats at a table at the back of the ballroom. From that vantage point, there seemed to be at least 150 people there, maybe even 200.
Frequently members of the press are offered a special escort to the front of the room, even if they arrive late. But this evening, as is often the case, I actually preferred to be seated at the back of the bus - so much more fun to observe than to be observed - and hence I was quite delighted with my table.
I found myself seated next to a sophisticated young man and his wife who I had never met before. He told me he is an applications engineer at an EDA start-up, and that his CEO had given him the company's tickets to the event. It was lovely talking to this handsome couple - so professional, so poised.
I rushed through my salad, so as to catch up with my dinner companions, and then started to look around to see What was What and Who was Who at the tables in my vicinity. The tables were numbered, so it seemed pretty clear that there had been assigned seating. Hence, it was downright fascinating to figure out who was assigned to the tables at the back of the room.
I actually recognized most of them. They were the CEOs, etc., of the smaller EDA companies - the people who I am not alone in thinking bring most of the innovation and creativity to the industry. The folks who, perhaps, hope to hit it big in their own right - whether it be in DFM, verification, or ESL - but more likely hope to hit it big by being acquired by one of the Big Guys in EDA.
So I was looking around, conversing with my dinner companions, and starting to enjoy the fabulous filet mignon and halibut entree, when some ruckus started to emanate from the table just to my left. I glanced over and decided it was just a group of good friends enjoying a good meal and some hearty wine. However, I also noticed that although that table was just as much at the back of the room as my table, it wasn't occupied by acquaintances from the plucky world of EDA startups. The table was occupied, instead, by the senior players of the Numero Uno company in EDA, including the Head Honcho himself.
"What?" I thought. "What are they doing back here in the back of the bus with us regular folk? Qué pasa?"
Before I could figure out the answer, the after dinner program began and all eyes turned to front of the room. First, Dr. Aart de Geus, in his capacity as EDAC Chair, welcomed everyone and announced that EDAC Executive Director Pam Parrish was retiring after 10 years in her role. He described those 10 years as pivotal ones for the industry, because when Ms. Parrish came on board in 1996 industry revenues stood at $2.3 billion, while now in 2006 they stand at $4.6 billion. Hence, Dr. de Geus said, Ms. Parrish can lay claim to having overseen a 100% increase in EDA revenues under her watch.
The classy Ms. Parrish came up to the podium to accept a warm round of well-deserved applause and a gift from EDAC. No one in the room doubted that she will be missed. She is as persistently positive and persistently politic a person as anyone could ever hope to meet. How EDAC can replace Ms. Parrish is a mystery. As it turns out, some in the room had hoped the solution to that mystery would be the next slide in Dr. de Geus' PowerPoint presentation, but no such luck. Nobody asked and nobody answered the question of who's next at bat with regards to EDAC. At least, I didn't hear anything announced from the back of the room.
The next slide on Dr. de Geus' presentation was accolades for Dr. Walden Rhines, former EDAC Chair. Dr. Rhines has been Chair of the Consortium for the last four years. His work with regards to squelching EDA software piracy, while also orchestrating efforts to prevent the U.S. Government from imposing buzz-killing export bans on EDA software, were celebrated by Dr. de Geus, along with more hearty applause from the assembled guests.
Dr. Rhines came up to the front to wave to his fans and received an enormous bottle of wine as a token of gratitude from the EDAC Board. In handing over the bottle of wine, Dr. de Geus noted Dr. Rhines' proclivity for fine vintages, and said this particular bottle was a 2003 Chateau Cru de Vin Exquisité Landoc Brut Chandon Superieur - or at least that's what it sounded like from the back of the room. Dr. Rhines seemed totally overwhelmed by the quality of the wine, and the quality of Dr. de Geus' linguistic abilities.
Meanwhile, the ruckus continued unabated at the table near my table, which off and on made it a little hard to hear. No wonder I couldn't exactly hear which Cru or Chateau, but no matter.
Dr. de Geus continued from the podium. He had a number of slides to explain a new business model being proposed for the EDA industry. Let's put a dollar value on all the 1's, and leave the 0's to the also-rans, he suggested. This way, any software that generates 1's makes money for the EDA software vendors. Any that generates 0's, doesn't. Dr. de Geus hinted that some companies were already ahead of the game here - OneSpin, for instance. Where as other companies - 0-In Design, for instance - were not. The audience loved it, although the frat boys at the table near mine appeared not to be listening. They appeared, instead, to be negotiating with a nearby table to secure an additional bottle of the House Red.
After Dr. de Geus' complex presentation, Dr. Rhines took the stage. He spent a lengthy stretch of minutes introducing the 2006 Kaufman Award winner, Dr. Robert Dutton of Stanford, TCAD, SUPREM, PISCES, and TMA fame - not necessarily in that order. The bulk of Dr. Rhines' presentation centered on the age-old question: Is Bob Dutton Really a Stanford Man? (As opposed to a Cal Man.)
Dr. Rhines had a series of slides that weighed the evidence for and against the proposal. In the end, although Bob Dutton took his education at Cal, his last 35 years of professional accomplishment have all played themselves out at Stanford. So, Dr. Rhines concluded that Dr. Dutton is indeed a Stanford Man.
Dr. Rhines' presentation culminated with a slide showing a veritable Rogues Gallery of past Kaufman Award winners - 8 out of the 12 were labeled there as Cal Men. No wonder that Dr. Rhines, a Stanford Man himself, was relieved to announce that finally a Stanford Man was receiving recognition from the EDA community. Dr. Rhines welcomed Dr. Dutton to the stage, and there was even more warm and enthusiastic applause.
Then the evening got really tricky. Dr. Dutton is a distinguished technologist, professor, and all around gentleman and scholar. He spoke at length about his work, about TCAD, SPICE, SUPREM, and PISCES, and he congratulated his many colleagues on the success of their years of combined effort. He also pointed out that at least a third of his Ph.D. students were actually in attendance this evening to share in the glow of his award. It was, all told, a great 20 minutes and well worth the effort to be there. Dr. Dutton is obviously loved by his former students, and many of his friends in the industry, as well.
Unfortunately, the fellows at the frat table near me seemed to have zoned out completely by this time. And, they were so busy with their high jinks, that it had become impossible for anyone nearby to hear above their noise. I glanced over at their table, noticed that the Head Honcho actually looked a little pained, and was himself straining to hear over the nonsense of his dinner companions. I also noticed one of the distinguished former Kaufman Award winners at that table was so busy whacking the guy next to him with his napkin that he clearly wasn't paying attention at all.
So, just to let them know what I thought - I gave them all my best schoolmarm glare, took my cup of coffee, and moved way up in the room to be closer to the stage. Of course, the reason that it was possible to move up at all was because a number of people at the middle of the room had already left, leaving their chairs available to me. Apparently these folks hadn't actually come to hear the presentations. They had come to see, and be seen, during cocktails, or over dinner, but didn't come to stick around for what I considered to be the heart of the evening, Dr. Rhines' introduction and Dr. Dutton's talk.
So, here I am sitting mid-way up the room, listening intently to the talk, and a distant memory floated past.
When my father was a very young assistant professor of medicine, a rather apocryphal event took place. He and my mother were attending an annual black-tie dinner event at a fine hotel in San Francisco. Gathered there were the creme de la creme of the medical school faculty, the distinguished doctors, their spouses, and their admirers.
Apparently, according to this oft-told story, the after dinner speeches were not quite all one might have hoped for -- particularly if "one" was my mother. The after dinner speeches were sordid, full of off-color jokes, and generally inappropriate on all counts, particularly as ladies were present in the room. What happened next is legend.
My mother, apparently moved by her own schoolmarm muse, stood up and announced to the entire ballroom that they were all very sorely lacking in manners. Here they were, the most distinguished faculty members of one of the most distinguished medical schools in the world, and all they could find to entertain each other with after dinner were dirty jokes. She was quite adamant, and my father was quite mortified. Apparently they then left the black-tie dinner, probably before the dessert, cigars, and brandy were served - and my mother spent the next 40 years apologizing to my father about the incident.
So, here I was last night listening to Bob Dutton and having a marvelous, private chuckle of my own. It really didn't matter what was going on over at the frat boys table. It didn't matter that some of the folks had left. What really mattered was that Bob Dutton was delivering a wonderful overview of the history of TCAD.
The audience up front was obviously engaged in listening to him, in particular all of his former students, as he described their group and their years of contributions at Stanford - some of which, he noted, was done in conjunction with Cal. As Dr. Dutton walked through the story of the technology that he is so appropriately credited for having created and fostered, those who wanted to hear could hear. Those who were unable to find time to hear, or had already rushed back to hearth and home, will perhaps read this little essay and go seek out the videotape of the evening after it's posted on the EDAC website. And, really, what difference does it make in the long run.
Because, harking back to Dr. Rhines' lengthy attempts to differentiate between a Stanford Man and a Cal Man, I will tell you what the real differences are. And don't for a minute think that I don't know what I'm talking about here. I went to Cal. My mother, my father, and my husband all went to Cal. I also went to Stanford. My husband, one son, and one daughter all went to Stanford. If anybody understands what the Battle for the Axe is all about, it's me - or, it's "I", as my mother would say.
Here's how the common wisdom goes. Cal is about real people. People who don't come from money. People who are honest, urban, authentic, rebels, thinkers, innovators, agitators, and fun. Stanford is about the Bubble People. People who come from money, live in a Bubble, and go to school on The Farm. Stanford people are polite, well-dressed, pleasant, tidy and smart. Sometimes they can play a good game of football, but more likely they're busy winning Nobel Prizes. Cal people wear jeans. Stanford people wear slacks. Cal people wear sweatshirts or t-shirts. Stanford people wear cardigan sweaters. Cal people drive clunkers, if they own a car at all. Stanford people drive BMWs. I think you get the idea.
But you know what the other idea is that you should also get? Cal and Stanford people, at least the ones who were swapping barbs over dinner tonight at the Marriott Hotel, are both equally capable of losing sight of the fact that not everybody in EDA gets it. Not everybody in EDA thinks that the center of gravity of the world is somewhere on the straight line that connects Hoover Tower to the Campanile. Not everybody in EDA thinks that Northern California, or EDAC in particular, is actually the center of the world.
And I'm guessing the majority of those people - the ones who don't get it - are working away somewhere on the other side of the International Date Line. They're not thinking about the frat boys - be they from Cal or Stanford - at the back of the room, or the presentations and power brokers - be they from Cal or Stanford - at the front of the room. In fact the people on the other side of the International Date Line, probably aren't thinking about the Kaufman Award dinner at all.
Because, in the opinion of this bemused school marm-turned-industry freeloader, those people are the Real People. For them, the differences between Cal and Stanford are totally negligible - smaller even than 45 nanometers - when compared to the differences between the entire well-heeled, well-fed, highly motivated, incredibly creative, innovate, and self-obsessed Bay Area population of techno-successes, and those folks in other geographies who are working hard to wrest control of the technical momentum in this century.
Whatever was going on tonight at the Marriott Hotel (and I can promise there was lots!), whatever politics caused the Head Honcho of the Numero Uno company in EDA to be sitting at the back, and caused the other two CEOs to be sitting at the front, whatever caused the next Executive Director of EDAC not to be named tonight, whatever caused the CEO of the Numero Cuatro company in EDA not to be sitting in the room at all - all of those politics, and more, pale in comparison to the real sea change that's underway in the industry and the world.
The center of gravity for the entire universe of high-tech is moving. Profoundly, steadily, and undeniably. Ten years from now, twenty years from now, 30 years from now -- when all of the very well dressed (even those from Cal), very well fed, very well paid people who were in the Marriott tonight have either retired or gone to their great reward - this whole event will be happening somewhere else. Where that will be, is anybody's guess.
It won't be in Northern California. It may not even be in North America. But it will happen. Because people who are real, authentic, hard working, and don't come from money today are working hard to see that their children are well fed and well paid tomorrow. Those people are going to beat tonight's crowd at their own game. Creating CAD tools that serve their local markets, and then serve global markets. It's inevitable. And they'll give awards to those who are most successful at contributing to the game.
And you know what else? Wherever the "Kaufman Award" dinner is set, 30 or 40 years from now, you can rest assured that the guys with the good manners will be sitting up in front, paying attention and playing nice. The guys with the bad manners will be sitting in the back, cutting up, and having a rip roaring good time. And the guys in the front will be wishing they were sitting in the back, and the guys in the back - at a least a few of them - will be straining to hear what's going on up front.
And somewhere, sitting in the middle of the room, there will be a schoolmarm … chuckling.
************************************
Peggy Aycinena is Editor of EDA Confidential and Contributing Editor to EDA Weekly. She believes Cal will beat Stanford on November
18th. Go Bears!