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THE ROCKEFELLER UNIVERSITY

pro bono humani generis
1230 YORK AVENUE - NEW YORK, NEW YORK 10021-6399

Joshua Lederberg
UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR

December 4, 1996
Dear Natth:

I have just received a fax from Yongyuth Yuthavong inviting me to visit the NSTDA on
Wednesday January 29.

I am more than happy to do this; but the time was not specified, and I wanted to clear my
schedule with you.

It turns out that day offers another unusual opportunity. My good friend Larry Ellison, the
CEO of Oracle Corp. will be in Bangkok that same day; and I was looking for an opportunity
that he might meet you. I had thought perhaps he could join us for lunch; but I don’t know if
that conflicts with or might be merged with the NSTDA visit. Either would be most fruitful.

Ellison is one of the richest individuals in the US (after Bill Gates), and is certainly one of
our most profound technological visionaries. He is currently leading a campaign to
democratize access to the internet and the world-wide-web by unshackling it from the $2500
PC and replacing it with a device no more complicated than a telephone handset. This would
be a $300 box plugged into a TV set, and giving access to services maintained by
(competing) providers, and an immediate window to the net. Even more than the
simplification of the hardware is the unburdening of all the system software (Windows 95 etc)
that has to be updated all the time by individual users. Ellison is very excited about the
implications of this for education and health communications, not to mention its role in
finance, marketting and entertainment.

He also has *major* long term plans for philanthropy in medical research, and will shortly
announce a fund for research in the biology of aging, for which I will be the principal
scientific adviser. He is one of the smartest people I have ever met, and puts up stiff
arguments to me when we discuss molecular biology!

I hope I have intrigued you enough to motivate you to try to arrange some schedule,
involving NSTDA or not, whereby we might converge. It is lunchtime he has set aside time
for. I am hoping, but not yet sure, he will be staying at the Orient.

   
 

rg sincerely,

Joshua Lederberg