Nathan Myhrvold

Nathan Myhrvold Nathan Paul Myhrvold (born August 3, 1959) is an American scientist, technologist, prolific inventor, chef, photographer, polymath, and award-winning, principal author of Modernist Cuisine Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking (2011), Modernist Cuisine at Home (2012), Modernist Bread (2017), and Modernist Pizza (2021). After retiring as Microsoft's Chief strategy officer chief strategist and chief technology officer (CTO), he co-founded Intellectual Ventures and TerraPower. Quotes The cost of carrying inventory will weigh heavily on retailers of all sorts. Walmart Wal-Mart successully beat small town merchants because they created a vastly more efficient warehousing, ordering and inventory carrying system, driven largely by a superior IT infrastructure computing infrastructure. A 'virtual Wal-Mart' which presents goods directly to customers on the Internet, or via Interactive kiosk Internaet catalogue kiosks in physical store loactions, could extend this model even further. as quoted by Ken Auletta in: The Microsoft Provocateur May 12, 1997 The New Yorker https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1997/05/12/the-microsoft-provocateur The twilight of the twentieth century is driven by a mixture of technology and resources very like that which drove nineteenth-century America. This time, it is silicon and software rather than Petroleum oil and steel. Instead of transcontinental railroads, we have a Telecommunications#Computer networks and the Internet global communication infrastructure that links us as the railroads did, but at the speed of light. And, once again, this change is being driven by people from around the world, making possible an unprecedented level of economic growth. Workers may start out sewing Nike, Inc. Nikes, but chip plants and more diverse enterprises will eventually follow. In the nineteenth century, you had to cross an ocean to find economic opportunity, freedom from repression, or a respite from famine. The pioneers of the twenty-first century can stay put—their diaspora is to cyberspace.Still, we may not be able to gauge the real impact of the information revolution for fifty or sixty years more. Consider our cities, which in many cases have been transformed into artifacts of industrialization. Will large numbers of people begin to telecommute and, in that way, return to a pastoral America? Or will the cities somehow become even more necessary to our lives? Technomania, like its industrial equivalent in 1897, is a reminder that all this lies just beyond our knowing. What has happened already is bound to be very small in comparison to what lies ahead. The Dawn of Technomania October 13, 1997 The New Yorker https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1997/10/20/the-dawn-of-technomania A true Modernist revolution in food has begun only recently, as chefs such as Ferran Adrià began consciously developing gastronomic experiences that transform meals into dialogues between chef and diner. Avant-garde cooking emphasizes novel, unconventional presentation of familiar flavor themes—the Deconstructed cuisine “deconstruction” of the meal by evoking diners’ memories of past meals while taking the dishes in novel directions. A meal at elBulli or other Modernist restaurants often exposes conventions that guests do not even realize exist until the innovative food violates them. Like other good art, Modernist cuisine is challenging and provocative.Dozens of chefs around the world are now advancing this culinary movement as it follows a trajectory that is similar, in many ways, to the Modernist transformations of other cultural disciplines. Like those predecessor movements, Modernist cuisine has faced some resistance and criticism. But it has arrived. February 2011 The art in gastronomy: A modernist perspective Gastronomica: The Journal of Food and Culture 11 1 13–23 https://doi.org/10.1525/gfc.2011.11.1.13 10.1525/gfc.2011.11.1.13 Technology contains no inherent moral directive—it empowers people, whatever their intent, good or evil. This has always been true: when Bronze Age bronze implements supplanted those made of stone, the ancient world got scythes and awls, but also swords and battle-axes.The novelty of our present situation is that modern technology can provide small groups of people with much greater lethality than ever before. We now have to worry that private parties might gain access to weapons that are are as destructive as—or possibly even more destructive than—those held by any Nation state nation-state. A handful of people, perhaps even a single individual, could have the ability to kill millions or billions.Indeed, it is possible, from a technological standpoint, to kill every man, woman, and child on earth. The gravity of the situation is so extreme that getting the concept across without seeming silly or alarmist is challenging. Just thinking about the subject with any degree of seriousness numbs the mind. Strategic Terrorism: A Call to Action 2014 PRISM: The Journal of Complex Operations 4 4 38–56 (quote from p. 39; pdf for volume 4, issue 4 of ‘’PRISM’’ , a publication of thrIrregular Warfare Center in Arlington County, Virginia) ... I was interested in cooking long before I even knew there was a computer. ... I started, I think when I was nine years old — I discovered cookbooks at the local library. And I announced to my mother that I was going to cook Thanksgiving dinner, all by myself. So I got this armload of cookbooks, and I cooked Thanksgiving dinner. It wasn't that great by my current standards, but it wasn't such a disaster that it turned me away from the topic. A Technologist's Guide to the Future March 21, 2023 The Knowledge Project Podcast, YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pi7iclNf24I&t=198 (quote at 3:18 of 57:01 in video}} ... Find something you really love. ... Don’t be afraid to change your mind if you find that you really love something else more. ... It really helps if you can find people who are supportive. as quoted by Anaya Parikh, graduate student in physics at the University of Oxford, in: 4 March 2025 The Da Vinci of our time – In conversation with Nathan Myhrvold Oxford University's Student Newspaper https://www.oxfordstudent.com/2025/03/04/the-da-vinci-of-our-time-in-conversation-with-nathan-myhrvold/ Quotes about Nathan Myhrvold Myhrvold, whose favortie adjective is "cool," does not conform to the Microsoft stereotype, although he has a master's degrees in geophysics and Outline of space science space sciences and also in mathematical economics, and a doctorale in Theoretical physics theoretical and mathematical physics. His Hobby hobbies seem endless: he is an amateur Paleontology paleontologist (hence the dinosaurs, a cosmologist, a zoologist, an environmentalist, a photographer, a Fossil collecting fossil and Book collecting book collector, a Formula racing formula-car race driver, a Bungee jumping bungee jumper, a Parachuting sky diver, a Fly fishing fly fisherman, a Mountaineering mountain climber, and an Gourmet epicure. He is an accomplished chef, too. Ken Auletta, The Microsoft Provocateur May 12, 1997 The New Yorker https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1997/05/12/the-microsoft-provocateur Myhrvold first made his name in technology: he became the first chief technology officer of Microsoft after the company acquired his software firm in 1986, and remained there until 1999. His scholarly credential run far and wide, from degrees in math­e­mat­ics, geo­physics, and space physics from UCLA (he started college at 14) to a doctorate in physics from Princeton University earned at 23 and studies with Stephen Hawking at Cambridge University in England and Anne Willan at La Varenne Cooking School in France. Before cooking school, he spent two years as a Staging (cooking) stagiaire at Rover’s in Seattle. He has also functioned as chief gastronomic officer for Zagat Zagat Survey. He has nurtured his love of food and science-inspired cooking techniques thanks to numerous travels to the world’s best restaurants, which allowed him to get to know many of their chefs. The publication of Modernist Cuisine is the culmination of many years spent researching, writing, photographing, and editing, and even launching his own publishing company, so that the book would correspond exactly to his standards. The Main Course recently spoke to Myhrvold about the book and how he made it happen, helped by co-authors Chris Young and Institute of Culinary Education ICE alumnus Maxime Bilet and a large team at the Cooking Lab. Anne E. McBride, https://www.ice.edu/blog/interview-with-nathan-myhrvold Institute of Culinary Education Interview with Nathan Myhrvold March 29, 2018 External links Category:1959 births Category:Living people Category:Businesspeople from the United States Category:Chefs from the United States Category:Chief executive officers Category:Company founders Category:Inventors Category:People from Seattle Category:Princeton University alumni Category:Polymaths Category:Scientists from the United States Category:Software engineers from the United States Category:Sustainability advocates Category:University of California, Los Angeles alumni