For a fun portrait of McCarthy's early life and aspirations, see the passages about him in "What the Doormouse Said". [1] - Born to communist activists in 1920

For a fun portrait of McCarthy's early life and aspirations, see the passages about him in "What the Doormouse Said". [1] - Born to communist activists in 1920s Boston - Studied math with John Nash at Princeton - Organized the first computer-chess match in 1965, pitting his own algorithm against one created by computer scientists in the USSR, with moves communicated by telegraph. While many will remember him for Lisp and his contributions to AI, perhaps equally important was his role in running a research lab in what became a characteristic West Coast fashion: finding intelligent people, setting them free to do what they wanted, and obdurately arguing with them over very little provocation. He was far enough from mainstream to be familiar, and even sympathetic to the 60s counterculture, but also cynical enough to embrace technology, rather than revolution, as a way forward. If this sounds a bit like running a startup today, there's one main reason it does: John McCarthy. [1] http://books.google.com/books?id=cTyfxP-g2IIC&lpg=PT113&ots=1FLa3U0gfc&dq=john%20mccarthy%20what%20the%20dormouse&pg=PT113#v=onepage&q&f=false http://books.google.com/books?id=cTyfxP-g2IIC&lpg=PT113&...