A boy stargazing --- January 10

A boy stargazing, a man planning, an old man dreaming

Pull, Push, Pull

This is my story, it is best told by images, images that delimit my life chapters. It's a different form of autobiography, the story of images -- dreams pursued, aspirations. In mid-career it was still unfolding and I couldn't capture it until now in my late sixties. What strikes me is the strength of the early vision and how it played out over and over.

The current prevalent view of psychology and fate is that environment and genes determine all. This modern view tends to ignore inspiration and serendipity while disregarding adventure

Its tone is often reductionist.

Other older versions of psychology and fate drew a 'soul' or 'myth' orientation for the personal biography. Plato described a 'soul companion' one was born with that guided life. Likewise the Romans named it genius, the Greeks had their myths and talked of a person's daemon, the Christians have their guardian angel. Michangelo said he could see the heart of a subject he was painting.

This, my story, was guided by many versions of fate, of a vision, calling, a daemon. I felt the myth's presence and it guided my early direction as a companion. And the 'myth's vision' came true.

The story is about a dreamer and the lifecycle of a dream. It's about a dream followed and it's about the dream side of entrepreneurship. It's written for young men formulating dreams and for old men who have followed their dream. It's about the stages where the dream becomes materialized and then translated into a business. It's about the admixture of a lifelong dream and the pragmatics of the business bottom line -- -- the dream becoming the main ingredient and the business becoming its stabilizing ingredient, its expression.

This narrative introduction is intended to frame and give the background for a six-piece poem. The first section, stargazing, is about a young man's daydream and belief that he could make an impact and change the world. It's about study and mathematics with the motivation of not doing math but of seeing the world in a different way and going about changing it. It's falling in love with the image of opening up a fresh provocative way to view reality.

At this first formative stage, there was nothing by way of achievement or academic success that would even hint that such an aspiration could come true. An image of having a mathematical breakthrough took root even though there was no hint of how it would materialize. The image held a sense of adventure, excitement, transformation --- the image foretold the experience. It was the image of how I wanted life ---- all I had to do was fill in the breakthrough.

It's in that spirit the story and poetry is written, to persuade dreamers to keep dreaming. I hope these lyrics and rhymes become encouragement for those who dare to imagine big changes. It's about empowering sleepy images into operational mathematics, and then riding the strength of a dream. The story is about the power of a dream.

When I look back at my career it was indeed the images that drove it. Instead of a business plan or career highway it was more of a calling, a destiny, a path. It felt like my education and experience, instead of teaching me about career, were unfolding my inner drive that was there from the beginning. It was more like getting to know myself and what I should be truly doing. The six piece poem is organized in this spirit -- -- each section is titled by an image that was both driving me and guiding me.

The research and discovery phase took eleven years, working with very large complex software development projects and then developing a mathematical theory of the complexity of software. The actual hard-core mathematical research took two and a half years. And then there were several small demonstration projects, a publication, and a few lectures.

At this point the dream began to sprout wings and I would fly to various locations around the United States lecturing on this brand new mathematical theory of software complexity. The story unfolds into an international business from this point. The lyrics tell the great American dream -- -- selling the company at the optimal time and being 'self-beached' with an self-indulgent life of entertainment and leisure.

And then a surprise; a surprise that should serve as a cold warning to any dreamer. Read on.

Image One: " find a breakthrough, tell the world" ---- The learning, Graduate school in mathematics, a boy stargazing

Good students dropping out, everyone scratching to hold on

This my first solo, out of the box decision, had to make it work, only me to rely upon

Fully committed, half decision - half dream

Decision questioned by good students dropping out

Dream reinforced by getting it, beyond doubt

Took me much further than imagined I could go

More appreciated the beauty, grades not a KO

The purity, universality of the theory

The elegant reasoning was pure poetry

Was stunned by the beauty and felt an urge to share the magic

Not cold hard syllogisms, more joyous epiphany classic

Knew I would find a way to make this my life

An image while stargazing, a dream's midwife

More than a career, a calling, destiny set

Other interest on hold, no regret

My call, find a breakthrough, tell the world.

Image two: "found the breakthough: the complexity of algorithms" ----- Ten years later, The Breakthrough

Toiled twelve years in a shared project muck

six million lines of code of error prone software

Felt a dislocation stepping away

Left friends and a good development career

to develop an underlying theory to convey

Spent two years trying mathematical approaches, to a unifying theory

Cajoled and convinced bosses to give me the space, barely

'the complexity of algorithms' was the aim

mathematical rigor would change the software game

Tried two hundred approaches, none good enough

Then eureka, after months of no sleep and exhaustion and apparent rebuff

... it appeared, I knew I had it, was no ruse

Thought it way too good to be true

Put it down to reopen again and again, to double prove

and yes, it was with me, could not disprove

'the complexity of algorithms' based on pure mathematics, but how to explain ?

Image Three........ "Tell the world"

Started to tell the story, first conversational spars

Then conferences, then three day seminars

Grew to fifty two seminars per year, once a week for twenty five years

Had to hire others to help tell the story, it built careers

San Francisco, NY city, Denver, Dallas, Washington DC, Chicago ...

Paris, Rome, London, Stockholm, San Paulo ....

The stargazing boy still excited and telling the story

Wondered how long the dream would last, when started barely,

Twenty five years and still chugging, still magic

Image four: "follow the dream's wings"........... Build a company

The dream was bigger than me

Had worldwide appeal

Instead of following the dream the dream pulled me

I gave the dream wings and it had me grow wings

Needed company and a company to tell the story

One hundred and seventy five storytellers

Automated the math, could watch in real time

Bought by IBM, HP, Procter & Gamble, Nabisco, AT&T, Prime

Me on TV, in front of US Congress, esteem

Things are a-rockin, living the dream

Image Five: "thought I sold the company ...." ......The great American dream

The company has high value

Sold. Lingered as Chairman

Never have to work again.

Life of comfort and leisure

Tennis all day, Tequila all night, hollow pleasure

Went from commitment and burning the midnight oil

to dabbling dilettante, lifeless as a gargoyle

Comfort without challenge, no dream to pursue

Hollow, vacant, void; life turned blue

Thought I sold the company, turned out sold the dream

Image Six: "the story of dreaming"............. An Old man's dream, surprise

Had to rekindle the dream out of a life as hollow as bamboo

The dream's rebirth is the story of dreaming

And following it, giving it wings, and being given wings

It's back on the road again lecturing where my math is being used

This time to hear the dream's story and tell a new story, bemused

To Beijing, San Diego, Athens, Rome, Paris,.....

Surprise, the reward is

not comfort but challenge,

not complacency but commitment

not leisure, but labor --- of love

And to tell a new story

Of a boy with a stargaze.....

Of any boy with a stargaze.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Only now can I understand --- how the myth guided my life. And it still does. I wrote my story backwards, backwards to understand and pay the myth its homage. I now read the story going forward, to honor and follow my dear companion.

Lunch with John Rice and Greg Mort, March 09, Inspired Sleepy Dreams poem

John and Greg,

I really enjoyed our conservation in Chevy Chase. John, I would be happy to mentor some of your budding entreprenuers in the Maryland/DC area and I would condider it on honor to speak to your classes in NYC --- particularily the ones for entrenpreuners.

The banter we had about starting up a business and stepping out of the corporate world was really stimulating. Somewhat rare to have a business tycoon, famous artist, and carzy ass mathematicain share their go solo catharsis. The way we were each captured by a sense of destiny, compulsion, pull was intriguing. --- after some period of weighing, evaluating, calculating it seemed each shifted,  from logic to feeling an inxorable pull to follow our respective path.

I thinik we should do something with this. Below is my fumbling attemp to capture some of it, along with the idnetity issues a startup entreprenuer faces. Since  I volunteered to be firest in the barrel maybe you guys could add, refine, expand ... this beginning.

We should teach this stuff to people starting up, I think it would really help big time. It's beatiful, three rafically different cultures of business, art, science;  we triangulate the dreams/tumult that compel one to his own path. The driven social engineer, the artist who's hands capture the heavens, the mathematician who quantifies the unquantifiable..... each step off the edge. And recount their transformational moment when pulled to fulfill a personal destiny.

Here's a sonnet ' sleepy Dreams to compelling Destiny'. I hope it captures a piece of that magic moment when we each realized we had to follow our dream.

Regards,

Tom

ps- Escher had it right: 'I don't use drugs, my dreams are frightening enough'. 

pps --- one of my favorites Thomas E. Lawrence nailed it: 'All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on their dreams with open eyes, to make them possible'. 

sleepy Dream to compelling Destiny -- March 09

At first there's an underlying dream, a passion, a fire

 but it's only an afterthought to real day to day life

 presently postponed in favor of daily strife

 it lives only in the interludes of the busy sticky mire

The dream grows, being fertilized by corporate bullshit

 the corporate world is just gray --- no fire

 the dream becomes the unfulfilled mind's desire, 

 needed for the soul's sanity, the spirit's work permit

 

The vacuous corporate gray flannel suit fires the dream yet more

  if not now then never, your hand called on the dream

  now plans, spreadsheets, cash flow scheme

  and the dream gets teeth, a teething spirit of implore

The mantra shifts --- 'I have to do this', separate from corporate mob

  the dream takes your center stage, everyone thinks you're crazy

  to throw it all away, what a daisy

  to give up such a good 'JOB'.

And the word JOB does it!  a JOB is no competition for your dream, your heart pump

 and so, with dream in heart and butterflies in belly

 you have no choice but to follow your path, o Nellie!

 and you jump.

And the dream unfolds

 And so do you.

The Homecoming ----- April 09

The Homecoming

I went back to the University of Connecticut on April 21, 2009 to in some way repay a debt. My graduate experience and MS degree from UConn laid the foundation for building a business based on a mathematical idea. I wanted to give something back.

In my graduate days, a visiting professor held up a book saying ‘if you know what’s in this book you can make a huge impact in industry.’ That image changed my DNA. I believed it and making a ‘huge impact’ became my mantra. And it played out -- bigger than I had ever imagined.

Forty three years later, I came back to Uconn to give a talk to the math department. I brought that same math book and my story. My dream was now to change some student’s DNA and sow a seed that would play out in a similar way.

I even retraced the same route I used to take, along Rt. 44 from Ri to Storrs. I wanted to recreate and revisit the whole experience. I wanted to bring it back -- same highway, same scenery, same feelings, hopes and trepidation -- all things that stirred me as a young man. The mission this time to really tell the story with impact and change a student’s DNA so he could recreate the entrepreneurial story.

Thomas Wolfe wrote ‘You Can’t Go Home Again,’ and I had the reservation that I’d be out of touch, that the place would be cold and stiff and aloof. Reservation aside, I kept myself open to the experience, however it would unfold.

Here’s how it went.

The Homecoming Trip

April 21 was a rainy day along Rt. 44. It was a light rain, like I remembered the trip 43 years ago. Back then, I wanted to stop at several scenic lakes and pastures but was in too much of a rush. I remembered the obsessive focus that let the beauty of youth pass by. But not now. I stopped and took it all in, and it was as beautiful as I had imagined as a young man. I appreciated it more now. The beauty passed by in youth was indeed recaptured. And it was magnificent!

Talk about time warp -- my consciousness went back and forth, in and out --- young man, old man. When young and too disciplined, I was seeing with an old man’s eyes. Now an old man was seeing with a young man’s eyes. The Rt. 44 lakes and meadows still held the same allure; this time I took it all in and rejoiced. George Bernard Shaw said that ‘youth was wasted on the young’ --- not on this trip. The retraced trip was my first of several homecomings.

The mathematician’s homecoming.

I had dinner that Tuesday, April 21, with two mathematicians and it was another homecoming, of a different sort. I had spent much of my career with computer scientists whose culture is to use theory; the mathematicians are about creating theory. And so am I, that is my true passion – creating mathematics, creating new theory. So dinner was a homecoming of blood brothers. I felt as if I had been away  much too long and was now at home with people of like mind and spirit, birds of a feather.

The student’s homecoming.

The on-campus Nathan Hale Inn was like any other hotel and it felt that way going to bed that Tuesday night -- until I opened the curtains to see the adjacent dorm with students studying at their desks. Do I ever remember those hours and days, struggling to understand math theory. And the occasional eureka when I got it. At the time, it just seemed like every day student life. It came to be my biggest passion.  I spent my career learning, applying, and creating math. It drove and stabilized me though the tumult of an entrepreneur’s career. I gave about 25 lectures a year over 25 years at conferences, universities, and board rooms, all explaining a mathematical invention. And that’s what carried me – the passion of the mathematical invention. The student’s passion for learning is deep-seated -- thank you Uconn.

The teacher’s homecoming.

The talk was scheduled for 5:30 that Wednesday evening; here’s the announcement:

University of Connecticut Department of Mathematics UConn Math Club Thomas J. McCabe (McCabe Software) A Mathematician's Dream: From Idea to Company - The Adventure of Following Your Dream CLAS 105 - Wednesday, April 22, 2009 at 5:30 pm

As students were filling in, George Raney came up to the podium to reintroduce himself. Dr. Raney taught Abstract Algebra to us graduate students in 1964.  George, now 94, had a childlike enthusiasm for both his subject and his students. He was emphatic, respectful, and had this kind of magic – he made math discovery seem like revelation. When stating a conclusive math theorem, he had a wide-eyed, childlike excitement.

After the introduction, I went through the graph theory proofs establishing the properties of the cyclomatic complexity  --- a way to quantify the tests in a program that I built my business on. When I got to the conclusive theorem I looked at George Raney. He was seated in the lower left, and there it was -- he had that same wide-eyed, childlike wonderment. But this time for my work. Talk about role reversal -- the student became teacher, teacher became student. It was a student’s homecoming -- bringing something back.

To Dream.

Then I talked about the computer science applications of the math. And next talked about building my company, McCabe and Associates. And emphasized that the idea and math drove it; the company followed.

Finally I got to the reason I came, to get the students to dream. About their breakthroughs, their vision, their companies. I held up that same 43-year-old book and said ‘if you know what’s in this book you can have a huge impact.’ I concluded ‘that’s my dream, now build your dream and come back and give this talk.’

I asked George Raney to stand and told the students how much George had helped me; he got a standing ovation. Tears in my eyes.

I came back to Uconn a second time, 43 years later, to repay a debt, give something back. But just like the first time, I left with much more than I gave.

Thomas J McCabe,  May 09

The Homecoming -- -- continued

The University of Connecticut McCabe Mathematics/Entrepreneur lecture series now is an annual event.  On March 28, 2010 Dr. Harold Schwenk of BGS systems gave the presentation.

The intent is to inspire students in mathematics and computer science to follow their own dreams and take the entrepreneurial path. A lecture will be given each year by an outstanding entrepreneur who has built a successful company based on original mathematical research.

The Genesis of the program happened some 45 years ago when a visiting lecturer at the University of Connecticut Mathematics Department held up a book and said 'if you know this book you can make a huge impact' --- and that made a huge impact on me and changed the way I thought. Some many years later that same image became manifest and I started a new company based on my new mathematical ideas, with the intention of making a 'huge impact'.

Students often get the idea that the subjects taught are arcane and of no practical value. In an instant that a visiting professor some 45 years ago gave me a sense of the power of the mathematics I was being taught -- -- it was the entrepreneurial aspect that really caught me.

I came back and gave a similar lecture even holding up that same book, and the University of Connecticut and I have institutionalized the entrepreneurial talk into a yearly series. And one student in the audience will get turned on, and become an entrepreneur creating new technologies and new jobs. And then he'll come back 45 years later and replay the whole thing!

My Creative Process ---- March 2010

Creativity: through the eye of an elephant gun

My creativity comes from connecting big problems with math.  I start out tackling a huge problem where I think I can get some traction.  In the problem space I spend many years reading all that I can and trying to fully understand the core essential problem.

My first such effort was studying why software didn't work -- -- why it wasn't rigorously tested, why it had errors, and why it was unmaintainable.  I spent over two years doing this and doing nothing else.  In parallel with the problem domain I search for mathematical results that in some way is connected to the problem and would provide some traction.  In the case of software I published a graph theoretic complexity measure after two such years -- -- it became a national standard.

I have spent five years studying the AIDS genome.  This resulted in an AIDS characterization as a mathematical group that would explain the underlying mechanism for the production of AIDS mutations.

Recently I have spent about 18 months studying software security threats and viruses.  This resulted in a algebraic reduction technique that I am in the process of publishing.  I also presented this technique to a software audience in Paris on March 9.

The beginning of this process is a bit schizophrenic being emerged in parallel problem spaces and mathematical spaces.  As the process continues I try to whittle down the problem space to both it's essence and something that's tractable.  At the same time I consider various mathematical models that have underlying simplicity and rigor and look in some way connected. Typically there are very many connections but a breakthrough has to provide a fresh new insight and map onto something operational that solves the problem.

The underlying process is a duality between working very hard and then letting go.  It's like interval training for an athlete --- run full blast, walk for a while, run full blast....  And then when I let go and all is quiet it announces itself.

 It's also an emotional roller coaster -- -- when I find a mathematical connection it's euphoric -- -- when I then find it has no operational use I feel like I'm wasting my life.  Very often after the biggest disappointments and the accompanying depression will be followed by a huge result, wherein I refine the focus and what I thought was an obstacle leads me to the truth.

Here's what drives me.  Rather than science I feel like this is a quest for an underlying truth -- -- wherein I can characterize a big problem with mathematical rigor and get a breakthrough result.  It feels like Columbus on the high seas discovering a new continent  --- the truth was always there, the excitement is finding it.

My next step is to go out and tell the world --- always to the practitioners never to the academics.  The practitioners know what works, the academics certify the math after the fact.  The reinforcement I got lecturing about software complexity gave me the confidence and momentum to build a successful company.

In short I look for big messy expensive problems being addressed with anemic slingshots -- -- and  lug in my elephant gun.

My creative spark in writing poetry is quite different -- -- I aim at the big elephant in the room.  Poetry lets me address the unaddressable in a light way.