Europe has a story to tell

Who's behind it?

Charles Herzfeld

Transcript

[Being director of ARPA:] “It’s the most wonderful job anyone can have. Ever. Still is. I mean, unique in the whole world, nothing better for anybody who wants to do new things in science and technology. But I was there six years and that’s enough. After a certain number of years you lose your effectiveness because people have heard all your arguments already. They say: ha ha, we know. And finally, I could not afford it. I was spending more money than I was making. When you are director of ARPA you have to do some entertaining for official business, and you get absolutely none of that back, for example. You get zero back.

And I had three sons who were going to go to college soon, and I had to make some money. So I showed my boss once a graph, a diagram of my money going down as time went on. And I said, when it goes to zero I have to have a different job. So, that was part of this. It was a complicated decision like all big life decisions are. It is a big, complicated decision.”