The Baseball World Series 1992

I had been playing Wallball with a few Friends for a couple of years, i was ’round 30 years old and was completely new to the sport, with very limited talent. My game was computer graphics programming. In fact, i was a key member of the ATI technologies Team, which embarassed Bill Gates at the Spring COMDEX of that very year (1992). As such, I attended several games of that years world series in a Skybox at the Skydome in Toronto, with Mr. Adrian Hartog, Chief Technology Officer and Senior Vice President, ATI Technologies Inc.

I was a starry eyed hacker kid who was so happy with this perk, that i never bothered to ask for a raise. Our conversations in that Skybox could be paraphrased with the following example…

Me: “Hey, Adrian, I got this AWESOME idea, which would make our products sooo much better for our users….blah, blah, blah”

Adrian: “We are not in the business of making life easier for our customers and users. We are in the business of making money for our shareholders.”

These conversations with Adrian turned out to be a turning point in my life. His words took a few years to sink in. Today I see the antics of the pharmaceutical industry during the covid pandemic through the very same lens that was shown to me in my visits to that skybox, where i saw this with my own eyes…

PS:

  • Common law: Canadian common law also imposes certain obligations on corporations to their shareholders. For example, directors and officers owe a fiduciary duty to shareholders, which means that they must act in the best interests of the corporation and avoid putting their own personal interests ahead of the interests of the corporation.
  • I was on a first name basis with all ATI execs, and the CEO of Gateway 2000, Ted Waitt, who visited me in my cubicle on Victoria Street in Toronto several times, and promised to give me any desktop computer I desired for free. I could use that just about now….
  • My kids turned 3 and 5 that year, when i took them to the batting cages next to the ATI office, on weekends, before or after visiting the science centre in Toronto.