Here is another possible area of application for *digital me*: to store safely medical information. This not only would be useful in emergencies but also in standard treatment of patients. Here is a possible example the details on how this would mesh with *dm* i can safely leave to your imaginations.
BTW Fiondella I liked (!) your idea that NOVL should really partner with the Banks/VISA/AMX etc. In fact those institutions already mostly do the job of *defining* the identity of individuals in the *real world*
From the NYT
January 24, 1999
A Prescription for Success
By MATT RICHTEL
n the Canadian Rockies last summer, Peter and Sheryl Neupert perched on a purple tandem
bicycle and looked up one of the steepest hills they had ever seen. Most other bikers in their
group demurred, but the Neuperts pushed on -- with Sheryl providing the kick to the top.
"She's an animal," said Neupert, starry-eyed. "She is the stoker."
Meet the new chief executive of Drugstore.com, a ballyhooed
online pharmacy that plans to introduce its Web site sometime
this quarter, and his wife, both former Microsoft executives, who
are now in for the ride of their lives.
Lately, just about everybody and their pharmacist has awakened
to the idea of putting a drugstore on the Internet and creating the
Amazon.com of analgesics. Rite Aid, Drug Emporium and
Wal-Mart Stores are among the contenders.
Those household names, however, have a track record. While
Drugstore.com, based in Redmond, Wash., has enjoyed a lot
of advance publicity, thanks to backing by the marquee venture
capitalist firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, it lacks
established relationships with drug makers and distributors.
Enter Neupert, 42. As a Microsoft executive for 11 years, he
catapulted the Windows operating system from an also-ran in
Japan to the market leader there, and he was instrumental in the creation three years ago of
MSNBC, the 24-hour cable news station. (He was proud enough of his role to order a vanity
license plate reading MSNBC for his car.)
Neupert believes that the key to success will be to emphasize the convenience -- and anonymity --
of shopping on the Internet. "It's better to get condoms in a box than at the checkout line," he said. In
general, he added, "the drugstore experience today isn't a pleasant one."
He says the huge domestic market in pharmaceuticals -- $150 billion in 1997, the most recent data
available -- leaves plenty of room for him as well as any competitors. Neupert hopes
Drugstore.com will be able to go public within a year, maybe as soon as in nine months.
The business plan was drawn up a year ago by Jed Smith, a
marketing executive with Cybersmith, a chain of cybercafes. Last
April, Kleiner Perkins agreed to provide the first of several
rounds of financing of several million dollars each, aimed at giving
it a 30 percent stake in the company. In July, it chose Neupert to
run the venture. (Smith is a vice president.)
Neupert, said Brook H. Byers, a partner in Kleiner, based in
Menlo Park, Calif., "was our dream hire."
Neupert's single-mindedness shows up in his private pleasures,
too. An avid biker, hiker and jogger, he made up his mind to run
a marathon in less than three hours, and entered five races until
he succeeded. Some associates say his doggedness is accompanied by levity; when working in New
York with NBC, where blue suits are the order of the day, Neupert would often wear a sequined
red-and-green Christmas tie.
Other colleagues and underlings, however, describe him as an "uber-achiever" with little time for
water-cooler banter. He inspires respect -- and sometimes fear, when his standards are not met,
they say. Neupert indirectly confirms that, declaring he "does not suffer fools" gladly.
The color of the Drugstore.com logo is purple, and, true to form, Neupert wore a purple tie along
with his blue suit during an interview earlier this month at an upscale hotel in San Francisco. His
speech was deliberate, and he seemed less a salesman than an academic.
The seeds of his tenacity were sown early. In high school in Portland, Ore., he finished No. 1 in his
class -- not the first in his family to make that grade. Decades earlier, his father, Karl Frederic
Neupert, led his class at the Naval Academy and served six years as a commander during World
War II.
The elder Neupert went on to found a successful wholesale plumbing company. Peter remembers
him as loving but strict: On Christmas, he wouldn't let his six children open presents until their rooms
were inspected for neatness. "It wasn't like we grew up like we were in the military," said Neupert,
who wears the Naval Academy ring he inherited from his father.
But Neupert said he decided to breathe more freely when he left the nest. At Colorado College, he
emphasized learning, not grades, and majored in philosophy. He eventually got a master's degree at
the Amos Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College, gave a shot at the family business, did a
stint as chief operating officer of a small software company in Portland and then settled in at
Microsoft.
His enthusiasm, at least outwardly, pales next to his wife's. When they met, Sheryl was director of
recruiting at Microsoft, and she agreed to date him only because, she says, he wouldn't quit asking.
She calls him "Neupert," not Peter. "I thought 'Neupert' sounded stronger," she said.
When not caring for the couple's two children, Ms. Neupert, who speaks at a racehorse's pace,
remains his unofficial business consultant. In fact, before Neupert took the job at Drug-store.com, it
was she who gave the company's board a final grilling. Neupert said he knows business strategy, his
wife knows people, and the combination is formidable.
It had better be. The mountain they are about to climb is formidable, too. |
