Al Shugart Dies: We’ll Miss the Genuine Silicon Valley Article
By Mike Cassidy
Wednesday, December 13th, 2006 at 4:19 pm in Uncategorized, Silicon Valley Business, Silicon Valley Life.
I’m going to miss Al Shugart for so many reasons.
He was a hard-driven father of the hard drive. He was an idiosyncratic CEO. The kind of guy who could tell a story or speak his mind without much concern at all about what you might think of him.
And he died today.
The guy helped build the 305 RAMAC for IBM over on Notre Dame Avenue in San Jose. He founded Seagate Technologies and worked in a bar and as a commercial fisherman.
He wore Hawaiian shirts and ran his dog, Ernest, for Congress.
He wrote a book about it. When he decided he wanted to write a comic
strip about ineptitude in Washington D.C., he talked a young artist
into drawing the pictures to go with it.
Forget all the goofy Silicon Valley slides between corporate campus
floors. Or Grateful Dead chefs at Google. Forget the CEOs in flip-flops
and the Segway-riding software billionaires.
You want the original Silicon Valley character, it was Shugart. (OK, there are other potential nominees here. Feel free to chime in.)
But as a reporter, what I liked about him most was his candor. Eight years ago, I called Shugart’s home on what might have been the worst day of his professional life.
He came to the phone and chatted generously and candidly. He was insightful and funny. I wrote a column that I’ll paste at the end of this.
Al Shugart was a Silicon Valley chief executive that I’m truly grateful for having known. How many can you say that about?
I’d love to hear your memories.
Here’s that 1998 column:
EVEN ICONS ARE DISPOSABLE IN SILICON VALLEY’S COLD WORLD
Published: Wednesday, July 22, 1998 Edition: Morning Final Section: Front Page: 16A
Memo: Silicon Valley Dispatches
Source: MIKE CASSIDY column
IT’S never been much of a guessing game where Al Shugart is involved. So, we know he’s insulted, disappointed and somewhat hacked off. He’s also out of work.
‘’I just can’t hold a job,'’ he says.He’s a pretty funny guy. So funny that he can crack jokes the day Seagate Technology told the world he was out as CEO.Such
events remind us how cold a place Silicon Valley can be. It’s wise to
remember that everyone is disposable, even the icons who built the
place.There are not many characters like him left in the
Silicon Valley story. He dressed for his top job like a favorite uncle
dresses for Friday dinner: short-sleeve shirts, open collars, casual
slacks. He ran his dog for Congress to make a point that government is
ineffective.
CEOs today carefully craft images. They do photo shoots with famous photographers. Top company officers have spokespersons for their spokespersons. Not Al.
On Tuesday he returned his own calls.
‘’I'm fired as an employee,'’ said Shugart, 67, who co-founded the company in 1979. ‘’I'm fired as CEO. I’m fired as chairman of the board.'’
Sometimes it’s hard to feel sorry for the rich, the powerful. But sometimes, and with some people, it’s not so hard. It’s particularly not so hard when you’re dealing with a genuine article.
Getting canned hurts. Shugart insisted he isn’t sure why he was dumped and that he had no clue the end was near. No clue, until Larry Sonsini, of Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich and Rosati, called Friday and said they should talk about some decisions his fellow board members had made. It’s one of those calls that you know isn’t good news.
Still, Shugart told Sonsini, an attorney for the Seagate board, that he was too busy to meet that day. Sonsini said he’d drive down to Shugart’s Pebble Beach home over the weekend.
Shugart didn’t sleep well Friday. Did the board majority want him to resign as CEO and just handle chairman duties? Did they have a major reorganization in mind?
His worst case scenario had to be losing his job, right?
‘’The worst case was that they put a contract out on me,'’ he said.
So, 9 a.m. Saturday there’s Sonsini at his door with the news that Shugart was out.
‘’I said, ‘Well, we better have a board meeting then, because I’m not resigning.'’
No, Shugart isn’t a quitter. So a conference call was scheduled for Sunday. Shugart and his wife, Rita, were busy Saturday.
After Sonsini left, the couple flew to Southern California to attend Rita’s youngest daughter’s engagement party. It was quite a gala, luminaries and all.
‘’We were not really in the best shape for cocktail partying and conversation and so forth,'’ he said. ‘’All the kids got concerned.'’
They wondered if he was sick. He couldn’t tell them the news. It wasn’t official.
‘’Saturday night was really the worst night.'’
Shugart may come back in technology. But for now, he says, he’s content to work on his investments and three books he is writing. Two are on management. The third is an autobiography.
‘’We got the closing chapter of that one today.'’ It was a joke.
See, Shugart is a pretty funny guy.
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December 13th, 2006 at 5:31 pm
Hi-I agree. I worked with and for Al for 10+ years at Seagate. Did he ever tell you the “turn left at Leo’s liquors” story? Pretty funny–I actually have a copy of the original ST business plan—it’s about 10 pages…simple but right on target—just like “Uncle Al”
December 13th, 2006 at 7:27 pm
[…] Weird, I just got back from Seagate where I talked with folks about what they are announcing at CES and how far the hard drive business has come and the first thing I see in my news aggregator is that Al Shugart, co-founder of Seagate, has died (thanks Mike Cassidy of the San Jose Mercury News). Like Mike notes, Al Shugart is a name that’s been in the press all during my lifetime. […]
December 14th, 2006 at 12:59 am
In the early 1980s, I was managing a multi-user computer product for which we needed a hard drive supplier. Seagate was one of the suppliers we considered. Although my main contact was one of their salespeople (a fairly senior one, as I remember), I could call Al at any time (something I avoided abusing, by the way) with questions, even hypothetical ones about Seagate’s plans, that only he could answer. He was cordial and affable. He was, of course, smart enough to give a hypothetical answer to a hypothetical question.
As an OEM prospect, I was invited to Seagate’s penthouse suite in the Badminton section of the Desert Inn during Comdex, where everyone partook of good drinks and snacks and enjoyed great conversation with Al and others. It was said (probably true) that the suite was provided on a complimentary basis. Apparently Al was quite a high roller in the casino — something that seems to have also characterized his business life. In those days, Comdex exhibitors would go from party to party and, even after we chose a different drive supplier, I still received a warm welcome at the Seagate suite in subsequent years.
A few years later, my older son was lucky enough to work for Seagate. As I remember, everyone he knew there was an admirer of Al Shugart.
I don’t know whether it was Al’s idea or that of one of his staff (VP of Marketing, possibly), but I thought that making the address of Seagate’s headquarters in Scotts Valley “No. 1 Disk Drive” was a stroke of genius.
Even though I last saw Al about 23 years ago, I can’t help feeling a certain amount of emptiness at the news.
December 14th, 2006 at 8:06 am
Very interesting article.
December 14th, 2006 at 10:42 am
Being nice is woefully underappreciated.
I never met you, I never followed your life but today just read about you and it would seem we have all lost a really nice soul.
Rest in peace Mr. Shugart, you set out a damn nice example of how to be nice AND successful.
December 14th, 2006 at 1:14 pm
Mike,
Super article. This stuff is gold to me. Thanks.
December 14th, 2006 at 5:57 pm
[…] As a beat reporter from back in the day, I would remember him fondly, for he was good for a quote, and quick with a word of wisdom. Mike Cassidy has the best obituary, and he sums up a lot of my emotions, and memories. He is the man who helped build the 305 RAMAC for IBM, and also started a little company called Seagate Technologies. […]
December 14th, 2006 at 7:40 pm
Never met the man, but I worked at Shugart Associates in 1981 when I was just out of the Navy after being stationed at Moffett Field. I was a temp, doing PCB rework. What a great experience that was. Oakmead Parkway was a bustling plant in 1981! Many had great jobs working for Al Shugart. Guys like him are the real deal, and will be sorely missed.
December 15th, 2006 at 9:57 am
[…] Shugart has always been able to keep a very direct and human style, even when his company grew to revenues of several billion dollars. I met him at a Seagate Technology event in Las Vegas, at the beginning of the nineties. There were 200-300 people and he was calmly sitting on a sofa in the back of the room, with his marquee hawaiian shirt, chatting along. We were introduced, exchanged a few sentences, and our business cards. On his, instead of the traditional CEO title, under his name it read simply “zookeeper”. […]
December 15th, 2006 at 3:14 pm
[…] Al was fired from Seagate in 1998. A funny article that captures the Al’s humanity is Al Shugart Dies: We’ll Miss the Genuine Silicon Valley Article. […]
December 15th, 2006 at 10:13 pm
I just remembered something else about my time working for Shugart. Even we lowly temps were invited to the annual Christmas dinner for the rework assembly grunts, which in 1981 was at House of Genji (similar to Benihana).
Then a few weeks later, after my temp assignment ended, I was surprised by an envelope from Shugart Associates. It was a check for $200, a Christmas bonus! I had only worked there from October through January. I still remember my pay scale was $5.06 per hour, so that was a great bonus.
How nice was that? Talk about unexpected. I work for big telecom company now and never see that kind of nice gesture for low-level employees any more.
An era come and gone. Seems like yesterday, though!
Scott
December 18th, 2006 at 1:57 am
[…] 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. […]
December 21st, 2006 at 7:37 pm
[…] Al was the man who defied description; many have tried to pigeon hole him– and most have failed. Mike Cassidy’s Obit is probably the truest of those I’ve read. Why? Because Al was a real man, one of those men of a passing generation whom we are losing all too quickly. The lessons he taught us were never preached– he just lived them. He worked hard and played hard. He was one of the most open, honest and accessible VIP’s in the technology business. It was apparent after spending 30 minutes with him, he loved life as much as he loved business. He enjoyed the fact his success at Seagate and other businesses allowed him to achieve an elder statesmen status. He loved enabling good and smart people to follow their dreams with a reasonable amount of success, as much as he loved his family and friends– and his dog, Ernest. […]
December 27th, 2006 at 7:39 pm
Having worked for Seagate for 15+ years, I have to say that Al was the real deal. A visionary, A leader, and an all around good guy. I am sorry to hear of his passing but I can guarantee that where ever he ended up, he’s having a good time and making sure that everyone else around him is too. And for clarification, Steve Luzco & Bill Watkins are snakes that stole Seagate from him. They are the lowest of the low for turning on the guy who gave them so much.
August 26th, 2007 at 3:20 pm
[…] In July 1998, Seagate tossed Al Shugart and his SanDisk insurance policy overboard. […]