When UCSF researcher Charles Chiu, MD, PhD, recently renewed his center’s partnership with Abbott Diagnostics, it marked a milestone in the University’s efforts to keep its industry partnerships alive and well. Abbott’s renewed funding for the Viral Diagnostics and Discovery Center (VDDC), which Chiu directs at China Basin near UCSF’s Mission Bay campus, underscores a common goal of […]
Category: My Writing
Jason Pomerantz: From Boyhood Dreams to the Scientific Lab: UCSF, January 2011
When he was in kindergarten, Jason Pomerantz, MD, drew a self-portrait depicting a surgeon at work in an operating room. He told his mother, “I want to make people not get old.” Now 38 and a craniofacial plastic surgeon at UCSF, he knows all too well that immortality is the stuff of science fiction. Yet […]
Power in Numbers: San Francisco Magazine, December 2010
What do you do if the fitness club you’re obsessed with is about to go out of business? If you’re Max Levchin, the multimillionaire cofounder of PayPal, you get your similarly fanatical gym buddies to go in with you to buy the club yourselves. Levchin had been working out for about a year at an […]
What Obama Can Learn From the Giants: The Huffington Post, November 2010
In what must have been a happy moment on the eve of a miserable midterm election, President Obama called San Francisco Giants manager Bruce Bochy to congratulate him on the team’s improbable World Series victory. The conversation was no doubt short and perfunctory, but the sports-minded president would have done well for himself to ask […]
Why The Giants Broke Their Curse: Sports Grid, November 2010
If you are like most baseball fans, you watched the San Francisco Giants steamroll the Texas Rangers in the World Series, beating the vaunted Cliff Lee twice and holding the juggernaut offense to a total of one run in three games, and you wondered how this collection of kids and castoffs who were nobody’s pick for anything in […]
Biz 101 for a Growing Crowd: San Francisco Magazine, November 2010
David Abernathy knows about image problems—he dropped out of high school and college, then burned out as an investment banker before starting his own consulting practice. Perhaps that’s why he’s a perfect fit for his new job: As a director of Compassionate Green Financial Services, the only company of its kind in the country, Abernathy […]
Even Rich Folks Need Friends — On Facebook: Forbes, September 2010
Want to know who is hoping to make some new friends on Facebook? Talk to Chuck. Or maybe, given the discount brokerage’s new embrace of social media, that should be Chat with Chuck – or Tweet with Chuck.
PayPal Founder Not Sure About Meg: Forbes, September 2010
So PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel is supporting Meg Whitman, the eBay CEO who bought PayPal for $1.5 billion in 2002, in her race as the Republican nominee for governor of California (as I reported Friday). But Thiel’s co-founder and investing partner Max Levchin is not so enthusiastic.
Old (Pay)Pals: Peter Thiel backs Meg Whitman: September 2010
When eBay acquired PayPal for $1.5 billion in 2002, it received a lot more than a great system for online payments. The acquisition, like so many in Silicon Valley, also brought in a horde of top-notch talent. But there was one smart guy at PayPal that eBay CEO Meg Whitman didn’t get: Peter Thiel, the CEO. She’s got […]
Baseball’s Billionaires by the Bay: Forbes, September 2010
Baseball billionaires? No, I’m not talking about the players – they may be millionaires, but I have yet to hear of a billion dollar ballplayer. (That may happen: Alex Rodriguez‘ last contract, the richest ever, paid him more than a quarter billion dollars over 10 years.) But the owners, now there’s another story. Looking at my […]