We owe entrepreneur Craig McCaw a lot for his efforts at bringing cellphones to the masses, and now he is working on WiMax, wireless access on a massive scale.
More ubiquitous wireless, pretty please, Craig (or anyone listening)! Now.
Here’s a link to a great front-page Wall Street Journal article on his efforts by Amol Sharma, as well as video below.
In my first post about the SDForum’s annual Visionary Awards, I forgot to add a few things that were interesting to me, including a short snippet of video I forgot to put in the first one, which appears after the jump.
First, Heidi Roizen–at whose luxe house in Atherton, Calif., the event took place–was also honored. Roizen’s close friend and onetime VC Ann Winblad gave her the award, and Roizen gave a gracious speech about her house, the award and the need for community and connection.
It was good she got an award, too, as I made a joke onstage right before about the diversity of the honorees this year (four middle-aged white guys whose differentiating elements were blazer colors and facial hair) and throughout the awards’ 10-year history. Most of the nearly five dozen SDForum honorees overall have been men, which is no surprise in the tech industry.
But the accomplished women are: Donna Dubinsky and Esther Dyson (1998); Ann Winblad and Kaye Caldwell (1999); Cate Muther (2001); Sandra Kurtzig (2002); JoMei Chang (2003); Carol Bartz and Carly Fiorina (2005).
Second, Mike Moritz wasn’t quite as flat as some reports noted, such as here (and note to Valleywag: I am not kissing up to the uber-VC).
Last night, party animal that I am, I also went to the SDForum’s 10th Annual Visionary Awards, which was held at the house of well-known venture capitalist Heidi Roizen in Atherton, Calif.
The not-for-profit group for-profit gave out its yearly awards to four tech figures, including The Wall Street Journal’s Personal Technology columnist Walt Mossberg, who is also my partner in the D conference and the AllThingsD.com site, and, more important, my close friend. I was there to introduce him.
Other recipients were big tech players including wireless legend Craig McCaw (now running Eagle River Investments and Clearwire); game pioneer Trip Hawkins, now CEO of Digital Chocolate; and supercharged venture capitalist Mike Moritz of Sequoia Capital.
There were cocktails, food and high-level schmoozery, along with the expected speeches and handing out of heavy glass awards. This was no Oscars, of course, given the distinct lack of evening gowns and no red carpet–the closest thing to glamor were discussions about the functionality of the iPod.
Here is my longish video of the event, with some snippets of speeches by Hawkins, McCaw, Moritz and Walt at the end:
Kara Swisher started covering digital issues for The Wall Street Journal's San Francisco bureau in 1997 and also wrote the BoomTown column about the sector. With Walt Mossberg, she co-produces and co-hosts D: All Things Digital, a major high-tech and media conference.
Here is a statement of my ethics and coverage policies. It is more than most of you want to know, but, in the age of suspicion of the media, I am laying it all out.
