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The Living Computer Museum was an absolute treasure, but it shows one of the major hazards in the non-profit world. I founded the MADE, a non-profit videogame m

The Living Computer Museum was an absolute treasure, but it shows one of the major hazards in the non-profit world. I founded the MADE, a non-profit videogame museum in Oakland. Just about 100% of my time when I was the director was spent raising money and soliciting partnerships so we could keep the doors open and the lights on. I would have killed to have someone like Paul Allen as a sponsor or involved in any way: we're a very poor museum compared to most, and money heals all wounds. However, our little museum run with volunteers and pocket change managed to be more stable long term than the well-healed and well-funded Living Computer Museum. Why? Because having a single benefactor for a non-profit is almost a death sentence. It's super risky, and as we've seen here, when that single donor goes away, it's all over. It's super sad the LCM is in the state it is in, but for non-profits this is a cautionary tale: you cannot build a long term non-profit on the support of a single person. The world is too chaotic for that. Even a non-profit with a billionaire behind it isn't safe. It is incredibly poor planning on humanity's part to rely on the rich to preserve our shared heritage out of some obligation or moral or ethical duty. We need to preserve this stuff on the order of the Smithsonian.

teddyh 4y ago
> having a single benefactor for a non-profit is almost a death sentence. In a way, this reminds me of when Google shut down Reader. This is also why you should only use standards, platforms and programming languages supported by a multitude of companies and organizations, and avoid those dominated by a single company.
- ghaff 4y ago
  Right. Because RSS isn't a standard and there aren't any other readers of RSS today. </s>
- geoffpado 4y ago
  I agree with your latter statement, but your choice of example feels weird to me… RSS was (and is) an open standard supported by an incredible number of both readers and publishers. How does it not meet your standards?
  - teddyh 4y ago
    Being a computer museum is also an open standard, and there are any number of competitors. But it is still a problem when a large computer museum shuts down.
foobiekr 4y ago
Is MADE alive and open? The website is super unclear as to what happened post-Covid.
- VonGuard 4y ago
  The website has our hours and new location listed on the front page.
nosefrog 4y ago
MADE is amazing, thanks for creating it :)
interstice 4y ago
Minor detail, I believe it’s supposed to be well ‘heeled’ because how well ones shoes were made mattered when the phrase was coined.
andrepd 4y ago
> It is incredibly poor planning on humanity's part to rely on the rich to preserve our shared heritage You can swap "preserve our shared heritage" with many things and it still holds. It's incredibly poor planning to rely on the good-will of the rich for lots of things, yet here we are...
- WeylandYutani 4y ago
  This is why in Europe it was the government that took over private museums and collections. In the Netherlands they have recently opened a giant storage complex with all the art that the country has acquired over the last 200 years. https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/nl/over-ons/wat-we-doen/ccnl https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/nl/over-ons/wat-we-doen/ccnl
dunk010 4y ago
You can, but there needs to be a large amount of capital allocated to a foundation, which can then fund it in perpetuity. It’s a bit surprising that didn’t happen in this case. Feels like his heirs have different ideas for how to spend his money.
- seanmcdirmid 4y ago
  From what I understand, it was actually Paul Allen's instructions that his sister (Jody Allen) to just give everything away. Unfortunately, that didn't include running the more niche museums, movie theaters, etc...forever. It seems like smaller projects are being sacrificed in favor of larger ones (like the Music Experience museum which is still open).
  - imperfect_light 4y ago
    Why? How lame is it to start cool projects like LCM and Cinerama and then just have it close upon your death when he had plenty of estate to fund it forever. Makes me think less of Paul Allen TBH (not that he or his relatives care)
    - seanmcdirmid 4y ago
      I think he considered those hobbies to be wound down when he was no longer around to enjoy them? Ya, think less of him because of that, but he spent his money on things he enjoyed that just happened to be what other people could enjoy as well. He wasn't really thinking of his post-death legacy, and just gave simple instructions with that regard (and his sister is taking the flack for that).
      - BryantD 4y ago
        My wife and I always joke about Allen running out of basement space and opening MOPOP.
    - wyager 4y ago
      I assume it was his inheritors who made the decision, not him.
kmonsen 4y ago
Pointed question, but why do we need to preserve it? And who decides what we need to preserve?
- steponlego 4y ago
  You've never heard of John Titor? In all seriousness while you don't have to believe in time travelers, there is a lesson to be learned there. Look what happened to the Digital Domesday Project. If preservation efforts had begun earlier it might all be online now.
- SllX 4y ago
  I’ll answer the who: people with money, capital and time choosing on their own what to spend their money, capital and time on to the degree to which they can sustain to do so.
- VonGuard 4y ago
  Because this stuff is an important part of our cultural, artistic and scientific heritage. We do not get to decide what the future finds interesting. Therefore, we must preserve as much as we possibly can so that those in the future have the ability to pick and choose. As it stands now, a lot of human history is just pieced together from trash and rubble. You can go to Rembrandt's house in Amsterdam, visit where he painted, slept, ate, taught, and stored his junk. You can see how he worked, where he worked, what the lighting was like in his house, what the door looked like then and now. Atari, on the other hand, is just gone. We cannot see their offices (they've been reoccupied a lot), and we have very little in the way of assets generated from the creation process back then. It is currently easier for us to see how Rembrandt worked 500 years ago than it is to see how Atari employees worked 40 years ago. That's not a good state of affairs, considering how influential Atari was on the evolution of home gaming.
  - ghaff 4y ago
    A great deal of information about computer systems and such from even fairly important computer companies more than 20 years old is pretty much lost forever. I was actually trying to reconstruct some details about one of the minicomputer companies that was purchased in 1999. There's very little left online outside of a Wikipedia article and information about individual systems pretty much doesn't exist any longer. Does that really matter? Dunno.
aroman 4y ago
Thank you for founding the MADE! I visited a few months ago and met someone there who has become a close friend of mine. And, it’s a great benefit to the east bay and gaming history more broadly.
CamperBob2 4y ago
Because having a single benefactor for a non-profit is almost a death sentence. Not necessarily, if the benefactor endows the NPO with a long-term trust rather than simply funding it. Endowment is what makes the difference between a charity and a hobby. Paul Allen had a lot of hobbies, but he wasn't that charitable, in the sense that many of his good works seem to have died with him. There are obvious exceptions, but the LCM was sadly not one of them.

teddyh 4y ago

> having a single benefactor for a non-profit is almost a death sentence. In a way, this reminds me of when Google shut down Reader. This is also why you should only use standards, platforms and programming languages supported by a multitude of companies and organizations, and avoid those dominated by a single company.

ghaff 4y ago
Right. Because RSS isn't a standard and there aren't any other readers of RSS today. </s>
geoffpado 4y ago
I agree with your latter statement, but your choice of example feels weird to me… RSS was (and is) an open standard supported by an incredible number of both readers and publishers. How does it not meet your standards?
- teddyh 4y ago
  Being a computer museum is also an open standard, and there are any number of competitors. But it is still a problem when a large computer museum shuts down.

foobiekr 4y ago

Is MADE alive and open? The website is super unclear as to what happened post-Covid.

VonGuard 4y ago
The website has our hours and new location listed on the front page.

nosefrog 4y ago

MADE is amazing, thanks for creating it :)

interstice 4y ago

Minor detail, I believe it’s supposed to be well ‘heeled’ because how well ones shoes were made mattered when the phrase was coined.

andrepd 4y ago

> It is incredibly poor planning on humanity's part to rely on the rich to preserve our shared heritage You can swap "preserve our shared heritage" with many things and it still holds. It's incredibly poor planning to rely on the good-will of the rich for lots of things, yet here we are...

WeylandYutani 4y ago
This is why in Europe it was the government that took over private museums and collections. In the Netherlands they have recently opened a giant storage complex with all the art that the country has acquired over the last 200 years. https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/nl/over-ons/wat-we-doen/ccnl https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/nl/over-ons/wat-we-doen/ccnl

dunk010 4y ago

You can, but there needs to be a large amount of capital allocated to a foundation, which can then fund it in perpetuity. It’s a bit surprising that didn’t happen in this case. Feels like his heirs have different ideas for how to spend his money.

seanmcdirmid 4y ago
From what I understand, it was actually Paul Allen's instructions that his sister (Jody Allen) to just give everything away. Unfortunately, that didn't include running the more niche museums, movie theaters, etc...forever. It seems like smaller projects are being sacrificed in favor of larger ones (like the Music Experience museum which is still open).
- imperfect_light 4y ago
  Why? How lame is it to start cool projects like LCM and Cinerama and then just have it close upon your death when he had plenty of estate to fund it forever. Makes me think less of Paul Allen TBH (not that he or his relatives care)
  - seanmcdirmid 4y ago
    I think he considered those hobbies to be wound down when he was no longer around to enjoy them? Ya, think less of him because of that, but he spent his money on things he enjoyed that just happened to be what other people could enjoy as well. He wasn't really thinking of his post-death legacy, and just gave simple instructions with that regard (and his sister is taking the flack for that).
    - BryantD 4y ago
      My wife and I always joke about Allen running out of basement space and opening MOPOP.
  - wyager 4y ago
    I assume it was his inheritors who made the decision, not him.

kmonsen 4y ago

Pointed question, but why do we need to preserve it? And who decides what we need to preserve?

steponlego 4y ago
You've never heard of John Titor? In all seriousness while you don't have to believe in time travelers, there is a lesson to be learned there. Look what happened to the Digital Domesday Project. If preservation efforts had begun earlier it might all be online now.
SllX 4y ago
I’ll answer the who: people with money, capital and time choosing on their own what to spend their money, capital and time on to the degree to which they can sustain to do so.
VonGuard 4y ago
Because this stuff is an important part of our cultural, artistic and scientific heritage. We do not get to decide what the future finds interesting. Therefore, we must preserve as much as we possibly can so that those in the future have the ability to pick and choose. As it stands now, a lot of human history is just pieced together from trash and rubble. You can go to Rembrandt's house in Amsterdam, visit where he painted, slept, ate, taught, and stored his junk. You can see how he worked, where he worked, what the lighting was like in his house, what the door looked like then and now. Atari, on the other hand, is just gone. We cannot see their offices (they've been reoccupied a lot), and we have very little in the way of assets generated from the creation process back then. It is currently easier for us to see how Rembrandt worked 500 years ago than it is to see how Atari employees worked 40 years ago. That's not a good state of affairs, considering how influential Atari was on the evolution of home gaming.
- ghaff 4y ago
  A great deal of information about computer systems and such from even fairly important computer companies more than 20 years old is pretty much lost forever. I was actually trying to reconstruct some details about one of the minicomputer companies that was purchased in 1999. There's very little left online outside of a Wikipedia article and information about individual systems pretty much doesn't exist any longer. Does that really matter? Dunno.

aroman 4y ago

Thank you for founding the MADE! I visited a few months ago and met someone there who has become a close friend of mine. And, it’s a great benefit to the east bay and gaming history more broadly.

CamperBob2 4y ago

Because having a single benefactor for a non-profit is almost a death sentence. Not necessarily, if the benefactor endows the NPO with a long-term trust rather than simply funding it. Endowment is what makes the difference between a charity and a hobby. Paul Allen had a lot of hobbies, but he wasn't that charitable, in the sense that many of his good works seem to have died with him. There are obvious exceptions, but the LCM was sadly not one of them.