When our son Todd was a senior in high school he formed a band. This
was somewhat unique in that it was a reggae band composed of white guys. They had two guitars, a bass, a trumpet, a sax, a keyboardist
who squatted on the floor like a toad, drums and Todd who was the lead vocalist. They all grew their hair into dreadlocks, wore red green and black hats to look like reggae stars. They were
very good. They played in local clubs and put out several DVDs.
They still get some air play over alternate music radio stations.
As I said, Todd was in high school. He graduated and the following year started at San Jose State. Inka Inka continued to practice, play and record and get better. When Todd was a sophomore he came to me and said that they were thinking of taking the band on the road to get more and better national exposure in the hopes that they would be picked up by a major record label like Sony. Would it be OK with me if he dropped out of college and devoted his life to music?
First of all, we agreed that if it didn’t work out like he wanted, he would come back and resume his college education.
Then I said OK do it. Here is why I agreed to him pursuing his music
career.
When I worked for Advanced Micro Devices I was the manager of AMD’s largest wafer fabrication facility. I had lots of people under me and interfaced with vendors on a regular basis.
One equipment vendor was an older gentleman named Monty. I got to
know him pretty well professionally and even occasionally on a semi-social basis. One day Monty asked me if I would hire
his son who was just graduating from college. Monty explained that he wanted his son to work in the semiconductor industry for
a while so he would understand his eventual customers’ business as he was expected to in the future take over his father’s equipment company.
I told Monty that I certainly couldn’t
promise to hire his son but that I would be happy to interview him to see if he had potential. I did interview him, I liked him,
had our general foreman interview him and we decided to give him an offer to be our grave yard shift supervisor. His name is Dave. I
must tell you that is not a very fun job. Keeping 20 or so not very motivated people working correctly and productively from midnight
until 7:00 in the morning is not fun. We obviously had Dave start working on day shift in the fab area for a month or so to learn
the job, or at least get a smattering of knowledge of what we were doing. He turned out to be a pretty good shift supervisor. I used to come in early in the morning one or two times a week to check on how things were going, and I got to know Dave fairly well.
One morning over coffee he told me his story. He grew up in Marin County in Northern California. When he was in high school he was in a garage
band. He was the lead guitarist and wrote songs for the band.
He said that they were pretty good, at least he thought they were. When
he graduated from high school he went to his father and said that he wanted to stay with the band and not go to college. His father
hit the roof. “No way are you going to blow your life on the stupid idea that this garage band will amount to anything. The chance of a band being successful is one million to one. (Probably worse odds than that.) Dave, you will go to college and when I retire
you will take over my company.” Or words to that effect.
So Dave dropped out of the band, went to college and did become a successful business man when his father retired. He even took the company public and made lots of money.
But the band
was – Huey Lewis and The News. And Dave missed out.
True story.
So when Todd said that he wanted to
forgo school and chase his dream I remembered Dave and Monty and said OK.
Inka Inka toured the country in broken down
vans pulling broken down trailers loaded with their equipment for a couple of years. They did lots of shows but didn’t get
noticed by Sony. They were so tired of it at the end Todd said that if Sony did notice them and gave them Boeing 737 to tour in
he would have said no. He resumed college, graduated and now is very successfully working at Apple.