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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tejek who wrote (188535)	5/14/2004 2:58:46 AM
From: Amy J	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1571111

I agree with the article. I think he was innocently naive, probably didn't have the skillset to sense danger. There are a lot of kind-hearted, carefree, risk-takers in hightech. Probably could only see the good in people. Probably couldn't recognize a terrorist, even if one was sitting next to him! Every photo has smiling eyes and a caring smile. Very sad he was killed. The communications industry has lost someone that probably would have proved to be valuable to the industry. He was in the tower business during the absolute worse downturn the communications business has ever had. The unemployment rate (in comm) was higher than even the Great Depression's unemployment rate. A Silicon Valley telco VC said the cost of towers dropped more than 10Xs (forgot the exact #, but it was shockingly high.) The VCs went from funding towers, down to zero. Meaning: there was absolutely no money in the tower business. Absolutely no hiring. No hope for someone in the tower business to get work in the USA. Maybe he did the only thing he felt would get him work - build Iraq's towers. Sad. At the last comm show I went to (forgot which one it was, there are so many of them), I saw some tower companies from India. The new ones tend to be from overseas. You can sense there's no money in it. He was obviously following his heart to help. If he resided in Silicon Valley, I probably would have met him. Sorry none of us here had that chance to do so. Seemed like a nice guy. I think the quicker the infrastructure (water, comm, elec) gets built, the better chance there is for stability to return. When word of a potential draft targeting hightech got around, surprisingly few people reacted negatively to it. (Ironically, only one hard-core Rep I know reacted negatively.) Most hightech people seem to have the attitude, infrastructure needs to get built and if it takes a draft to do so, so be it. Hightech reacted more negatively to the abuse than the proposed draft - the abuse stirred up talk about the liability of having an American passport, while the draft did not. They are seriously under funded and under staffed. They should platoon it with a lot of funds and staff, just to get it over with quicker. The longer it drags on with limited funds and limited people, the more long-term damage this may create. Regards, Amy J