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It's worth noting that James Baker is very active on Quora these days. His profile: https://www.quora.com/profile/James-Baker-69 https://www.quora.com/profile/J

It's worth noting that James Baker is very active on Quora these days. His profile: https://www.quora.com/profile/James-Baker-69 https://www.quora.com/profile/James-Baker-69 Here's his response to "What is your worst memory as an entrepreneur": https://www.quora.com/What-is-your-worst-memory-as-an-entrepreneur/answer/James-Baker-69 https://www.quora.com/What-is-your-worst-memory-as-an-entrep... And here's one where he explains that he's financially ok, despite the Dragon fiasco, because he saved enough for retirement: https://www.quora.com/How-did-James-Baker-lose-several-hundred-million-dollars-in-six-months/answer/James-Baker-69 https://www.quora.com/How-did-James-Baker-lose-several-hundr... Most of his answers are really good.

bhauer 11y ago
From the worst memory answer, this stood out: > The technology has progressed less in the last fifteen years than it did every two or three years under Dragon Systems. I suspect he is biased, but it's hard to not agree with the sentiment. It's a shame that someone with such enormous personal motivation in the specific technology space lost the ability and the will to be part of it. And as such, that technology space has suffered. It's a matter of belief since we cannot know how things would have played out differently, but I agree with the sentiment.
- mseebach 11y ago
  Building something where nothing stood before is monumental, but last weekend I spoke to Google Translate (at a noisy party) and had it instantly and correctly translate what I said to mandarin. I guess what I'm trying to say, is that taking the technology and making it ubiquitous on a mass market is no small fry, either.
  - ElysianEagle 11y ago
    Depends on the resources available to the company trying to popularize the product/idea. If it's a tiny start-up with limited resources, then absolutely, it's a huge accomplishment. If it's a massive company with tons of cash, together with the name recognition and momentum of n number of other products already out...then it's probably not that big of a deal, but still commendable, I guess.
- jondubois 11y ago
  Finance firms are the parasites of society, they take advantage of all the flaws in the system to make money for themselves and give their top employees massive bonuses to keep doing what they do whilst keeping their mouths shut.
  - hueving 11y ago
    That's a pretty childish view. Lots of people enjoy home mortgages, savings accounts, and investing in companies, all of which depend on finance firms.
    - Thetawaves 11y ago
      Savings accounts are the most honest thing in that list, and that is an exceedingly small portion of GS' business. The rest are rackets of some form or other.
    - jondubois 11y ago
      Nobody 'enjoys' their mortgages. Mortgages are responsible for making housing less affordable for everyone. In the old days when people actually saved up to buy a house, the average house would cost something like 4 times the average person's annual salary. Today, we're looking at 10 to 20 times. Mortgages allow people who would otherwise not have been able to afford a house to buy it outright - This increases the demand for housing and thus drives prices up. In the old days, people worked hard to achieve the American dream (it was an optimistic pursuit). Today, people work hard to avoid bankruptcy (we have become a fear-driven society). As for 'investing in companies' - Big firms like Goldman Sachs mostly invest in big corporations which enslave people for profit. People in finance are more interested in helping big companies create and maintain strategic monopolies than allowing new companies to improve people's lives. Monopolies are profitable and don't require any R&D investment. As for savings accounts, well they're not so bad, but what is the point of having a savings account if you have no money to put in it? Also, with all the new automated payment features offered, people are encouraged to spend all their little money on things that they don't need. That means everything significant has to be purchased using credit. What's worse is that all of these evils leverage off of each other to make things even worse overall. For example, the rise of corporations means that people are forced to move to big cities to find jobs (since jobs are harder to find in smaller towns - Because small businesses there are being crushed by corporations), this drives city apartment prices up, which increases the amount of mortgage people have to take to buy a house, which increases peoples' dependence on their jobs and reduces their ability to negotiate better salaries and prevents them from improving their conditions of living. As corporations take a hold on agriculture, the nutritional quality of food keeps going down (see http://calmscience.net/2015/12/11/tale-of-tasteless-tomatoes-why-vegetables-do-not-taste-good-anymore/ http://calmscience.net/2015/12/11/tale-of-tasteless-tomatoes...) and the standard of living of the working class keeps dropping lower and lower.
rcarrigan87 11y ago
Love this guy. Great example of someone who does it for all the right reasons.

bhauer 11y ago

From the worst memory answer, this stood out: > The technology has progressed less in the last fifteen years than it did every two or three years under Dragon Systems. I suspect he is biased, but it's hard to not agree with the sentiment. It's a shame that someone with such enormous personal motivation in the specific technology space lost the ability and the will to be part of it. And as such, that technology space has suffered. It's a matter of belief since we cannot know how things would have played out differently, but I agree with the sentiment.

mseebach 11y ago
Building something where nothing stood before is monumental, but last weekend I spoke to Google Translate (at a noisy party) and had it instantly and correctly translate what I said to mandarin. I guess what I'm trying to say, is that taking the technology and making it ubiquitous on a mass market is no small fry, either.
- ElysianEagle 11y ago
  Depends on the resources available to the company trying to popularize the product/idea. If it's a tiny start-up with limited resources, then absolutely, it's a huge accomplishment. If it's a massive company with tons of cash, together with the name recognition and momentum of n number of other products already out...then it's probably not that big of a deal, but still commendable, I guess.
jondubois 11y ago
Finance firms are the parasites of society, they take advantage of all the flaws in the system to make money for themselves and give their top employees massive bonuses to keep doing what they do whilst keeping their mouths shut.
- hueving 11y ago
  That's a pretty childish view. Lots of people enjoy home mortgages, savings accounts, and investing in companies, all of which depend on finance firms.
  - Thetawaves 11y ago
    Savings accounts are the most honest thing in that list, and that is an exceedingly small portion of GS' business. The rest are rackets of some form or other.
  - jondubois 11y ago
    Nobody 'enjoys' their mortgages. Mortgages are responsible for making housing less affordable for everyone. In the old days when people actually saved up to buy a house, the average house would cost something like 4 times the average person's annual salary. Today, we're looking at 10 to 20 times. Mortgages allow people who would otherwise not have been able to afford a house to buy it outright - This increases the demand for housing and thus drives prices up. In the old days, people worked hard to achieve the American dream (it was an optimistic pursuit). Today, people work hard to avoid bankruptcy (we have become a fear-driven society). As for 'investing in companies' - Big firms like Goldman Sachs mostly invest in big corporations which enslave people for profit. People in finance are more interested in helping big companies create and maintain strategic monopolies than allowing new companies to improve people's lives. Monopolies are profitable and don't require any R&D investment. As for savings accounts, well they're not so bad, but what is the point of having a savings account if you have no money to put in it? Also, with all the new automated payment features offered, people are encouraged to spend all their little money on things that they don't need. That means everything significant has to be purchased using credit. What's worse is that all of these evils leverage off of each other to make things even worse overall. For example, the rise of corporations means that people are forced to move to big cities to find jobs (since jobs are harder to find in smaller towns - Because small businesses there are being crushed by corporations), this drives city apartment prices up, which increases the amount of mortgage people have to take to buy a house, which increases peoples' dependence on their jobs and reduces their ability to negotiate better salaries and prevents them from improving their conditions of living. As corporations take a hold on agriculture, the nutritional quality of food keeps going down (see http://calmscience.net/2015/12/11/tale-of-tasteless-tomatoes-why-vegetables-do-not-taste-good-anymore/ http://calmscience.net/2015/12/11/tale-of-tasteless-tomatoes...) and the standard of living of the working class keeps dropping lower and lower.

rcarrigan87 11y ago

Love this guy. Great example of someone who does it for all the right reasons.