IBM Shatters The Glass Ceiling

On October 25th Virginia Rometty, 60, was chosen to be the CEO of IBM. She is the first woman CEO of IBM in its 100 year history. It came shortly after HP, another venerated tech giant, chose Meg Whitman as its CEO, its second actually after the unceremonious ouster of its first woman CEO Carly Fiorina.

Ginny, as Virginia is referred to, joins a select club of woman CEO's. Indra Nooyi, Indian born, at Pepsico; Ursual Burns, first Afro-American and second woman CEO to head Xerox, Xerox has had two women CEO's in succession with Anne Mulcahy as the first; Ellen Kullman heads the bicentennial giant Du Pont, a first in 200 years of that company's existence. Compared to corporations the supposed guardians of progressive politics, the universities, are slow to move. Princeton got its first woman president, Shirley Tilghman a molecular biologist, in 2001. Harvard appointed Drew Gilpin Faust a Civil War scholar to its presidency in 2007 shattering the proverbial glass ceiling after 350 years.

Sam Palmisano, the outgoing CEO of IBM, is quoted by NYT as rejecting the notion that gender played any role in selecting Rometty. Palmisano was full of praise for Rometty. No nation on earth is free of prejudices and biases that disadvantage sections of the population but how they evolve from it is what differentiates the substantive from the chaff.

The rise of women, by merit, in US is irreversible and marks a progress that is substantive. Drew Gilpin Faust illustrated how women outgrew their traditional roles in the crucible of the civil war in her book "Mother's of invention". When men had to leave for battlefields it was the women who stepped out and filled in the shoes of men. Teaching, seen today as a woman's profession, was out of bounds for women in pre-civil-war era in USA. In the decades after women were assigned to traditional jobs like nursing and teaching. Many other occupations were out of bounds for women. Especially Science and Math. Faust herself faced jeers from male professors as a student. Faust had completed all requisite coursework for her PhD and the work that remained did not need her to be at the university. Newly married Faust asked her professor if she can complete the thesis from remote as she had to accompany her husband. The professor sneered that as woman she was only focused on marriage. When many women won Nobel Prizes in science in 2009 I wrote http://contrarianworld.blogspot.com/2009/10/2009-nobel-prizes-stellar-year-for.html and emphasized that women started entering top research positions only in the 80's and their researches are only now coming to notice and that this is only a beginning.

The incident in Faust's life illustrates a key difficulty for women. I remember reading an article in Harvard Business Review citing IBM studies that women lose 7 years in their career life due to child bearing and bringing up children. Corporate America has been negligent in this regard. In an age when jobs are being sent across oceans allowing women to work from home where the function can afford it is still in the minority. Corporate America is stuck in the 60's when it comes to workers and work practices.

Corporations are rarely, rather never, given credit for ushering in social change, politicians corner it. IBM has been a leader in ushering in social change. As an employer of hundreds of thousands over decades its policies are an illustration of how Corporations are often painted with the same brush and very unfairly. IBM's President Thomas Watson, in 1953, sent out a letter to his employees that IBM needed the best people irrespective of color. He also sent notices to two southern governors that IBM will NOT have a segregated workplace. Only those who know the race politics of US would appreciate the monumental courage for a company CEO to do that. IBM is rated highly for its support of Gay and Lesbian rights. When Atlanta natives demurred over a function to honor Martin Luther King Jr who had won the Nobel Peace prize Coca Cola threatened to walk out of Atlanta if the city did not honor its most famous son. A note, both IBM and Coca Cola were thrown out of India when Janata Party came to rule, George Fernandes broke coke cans in the streets.

When Time magazine chose to highlight whistleblowers for their courage to speak truth to power, not coincidentally all three that were chosen were women. Michael Lewis in his latest bestseller about the crises sweeping Europe, "Boomerang", writes that maybe Wall Street would not have been so reckless if there had been more women at the helm. Testosterone driven men drove Wall Street off the cliff. Michael Lewis, I could say with my tongue in my cheek, has not heard about Jayalalitha or Indira Gandhi and has forgotten Imelda Marcos.

American politics is still chauvinistic. When Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama dueled for the Democratic party nomination a WSJ poll said more Americans were ready for a black president and not yet for a woman president. The poll was taken about a hypothetical without referring to Hillary or Barack. However I am sure people responded with those two in mind and it certainly skewed the results. Hillary is the first woman to 'win' votes in a primary. She gave many a sleepless night to Obama. When Hillary spoke at a rally in New Hampshire two guys stood at the back of the crowd with t-shirts that said "come do my laundry". Obama never faced such a racism at close quarters those such comments surfaced in commentary. Hillary finally lost due to her own mistakes. However today she is the most admired cabinet member of Obama with a Time magazine cover story this week gushing over her work. She is the third woman as Secretary of State.

Many men who swear by gender equality still betray traces of male chauvinism. I've seen this especially amongst Tamil Nadu men, particularly those who dislike Jayalalitha. Jayalalitha's marital status is often fodder for jokes and snide remarks. That she was an actress adds fuel to the fodder. As Elizabeth, the Virgin queen, was mocked for her supposed virgin status so is Jayalalitha mocked.

Hillary Clinton suffered many an unkind remark about her pant suits, her girth, her make up, how she dressed, if she dressed conservatively she was stuffy, if she dressed with an open neck she flaunting cleavage, if her eyes had dark lines she had a bad night dreaming of losing, if she had her makeup perfect perfect she was 'unconnected and distant'. Damned if she did it, damned if she did not.

After Iowa when blacks realized that Obama is not Jesse Jackson and rallied to him in a historic candidacy women refused to do the same for Hillary. Oprah chose race over gender. Hillary plowed on and won 18 million votes in primaries and later referred to it in her concession speech as '18million cracks in the glass ceiling'.

That women of high merit are chosen because of their merit is what makes these breakthroughs as admirable. Drew Faust is a sheer scholar. Rometty is a high achiever. They are not, to be blunt, affirmative action cases or quota cases. In a not too distant future a woman would certainly become the President of USA. 

Theory of Relativity, The Nazis and Soviet Russia.

A scientist, especially Nobel Laureates and heads of premier research institutions, is held in awe by the common man. A man of science is thought of as rational, one who rises 'above' common passions and prejudices. However a cursory reading of the lives of scientists would dispel that myth. At the end scientists, too, are just human beings.

I am now reading "The Born-Einstein Letters:1916 - 1955" edited by Max Born. This is a collection of correspondences between physicist Max Born, his wife Hedi and Albert Einstein. Its a charming book that does not tax the reader but nevertheless leaves one enriched. I love to read anything about Einstein and hence I am not a stranger to the many controversies of the period that the letters portray but the personal narrative brings such distant happening to an immediacy. 

Anti-semitism, hating Jews, is often thought of as unique to Germany, thanks to Holocaust. Even more simplistically many think that Jews were persecuted by just Hitler and his bigoted ideology that the Germans took a fancy for under turbulent times. Anti-semitism has deep roots in Europe (and USA too!!!!). When Einstein, an unknown worker in an office for issuing patents, shook the scientific world in 1905 with his paper "Special Theory of relativity" he burst into the international scene. Finally when he published, in 1915, "the general theory of relativity",  he practically redefined the world for eternity. Problem was he was a Jew. 

As early as 1920 Philip Lenard, Nobel Prize winner in 1905 for his research on cathode rays, spearheaded several German scientists in a blistering nakedly anti-Semitic attack on Einstein. Lenard was a member of the Nazi party and chairman of "Aryan Physics". Lenard and many other's attacked TOR (Theory of Relativity) as a "Jewish Conspiracy". Irving Wallace, researching for his book ' The Prize' about Nobel's, discovered that Lenard was instrumental in making the Nobel committee to award the prize to Einstein not for relativity but for his lesser known papers on Photoelectric effect and Brownian motion. The prize was inevitable after Eddington in a spectacular experiment had proved the curvature of space as predicted by the General TOR. 

TOR fared even worse in Soviet Russia. In a letter dated 12th August 1929, Born writes to Einstein seeking help for a Russian physicist, Rumer. Born writes "Rumor, left Russia because relativists are treated badly there (truly!). The Theory of relativity is thought to contradict the official materialist philosophy and, as I've already been told by Joffe, its adherents are persecuted". TOR was thought to contradict the central tenet of determinism of dialectical materialism that ruled the roost in Soviet communist era. Born adds a detailed note to the letter. Rumor had been deported for espousing TOR to some Gulag near the Arctic ocean. "After the death of Stalin he received a telegram" freeing him and recalling him back to Moscow. Rumer was appointed head of an institute and became a loyal communist. Born says Rumer later wrote to him extolling the virtues of communism and how "Soviet system is superior to Western institutions, not only politically and economically, BUT ALSO MORALLY". 

Incidentally Soviet Russia also disliked genetics and frowned on Gregor Mendel for the same reasons as they objected to TOR. Science was an ideological football in Russia. School students learned only the Mendeleev periodic table (based on atomic weight) and not the modern periodic table (based on atomic number). I remember my school chemistry textbook detailing key difference between Mendeleev's and Modern periodic tables and how the latter addresses certain defects of Mendeleev's table.

Scientists are often the worst offenders of the tenets of science. However throughout history eventually science, and truth, often triumph in the end.

Nobel, Nationality and Venky Ramakrishnan

A very interesting news appeared in "The Hindu" http://beta.thehindu.com/sci-tech/article33379.ece?homepage=true . Given that Venky was born in Chidambaram every Tamilian now wants to say hello, in the internet age its easy and Venky's email id is listed too. Apparently Venky is not amused, "All sorts of people from India have been writing to me, clogging up my email box. It takes me an hour or two to just remove their mails. Do these people have no consideration? It is OK to take pride in the event, but why bother me....There are also people who have never bothered to be in touch with me for decades who suddenly feel the urge to connect. I find this strange..People I don’t know, for example a Mr. Govindrajan, claim that they were my teachers at Annamalai University which I never attended".

The cream goes to his remark, "I, personally, am not important. The fact that I am of Indian origin is even less important. We are all human beings, and our nationality is simply an accident of birth".

The enthusiasm of Indians is understandable given that only two Indians have won Nobel as Indian citizens for work done in India (Tagore and C.V.Raman). Amartya Sen got it as Indian citizen but his work was mainly outside India, Theresa's work was in Indian but she was only a naturalized citizen. In a nation starved for global achievers Venky, Rahman, Tendulkar etc are being loaded with expectations and good will.

Was Venky being churlish in his reaction? Not in the least bit. Other than his official biography listing where he studied or where he works we know little of the man, why he left India etc. For a scientist who forsook his adopted homeland, USA, to go to Cambridge for the sake of academic climate, that too with a pay cut, nationalities matter little. National pride, linguistic pride, chaunistic pride in ones own ethnic culture are all very important only for those who have little else to be proud about.

What does Venky owe India, intellectually? I guess nothing and thats the most important aspect. I've often been asked about my lack of pride in my mother-tongue and ethnicity. What can I say except that much of what I respect and love is not in Tamil or in Tamil Nadu. Like Johnson said, patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.

I appreciate Venky's honesty. S.Chandrasekhar, nobel in astrophysics for defining the death of a star (Chandrasekhar limit), was hypocritical on this score. Chandra was sent to UK, to study under none other than Eddington, on Indian tax payer money. The scholarship stipulated that he return back and work in India. Chandra returned back and was asked to work in some lowly position in some government observatory. Chandra petitioned Nehru that he should be released from the obligation as India could not offer him anything commensurate to his abilities. Being Nehru he was obliged. Chandra, promptly left for US and did his research on the death of stars. Much later in an interview with his biographer he objected to brain drain.

Commenting on the rumor that he was offered the top most job in India's premier lab, Venky replied, "Nobody has approached me about an offer to work in India. However, I can categorically state that if they did so, I would refuse immediately".

Contrary to India, USA recognizes that most Nobels this year, though awarded to Americans, went mostly to immigrants. While it is comforting that US is still a magnet for scientific talent America is deeply concerned at the disproportionate number of immigrants as PhD's and the fact that Americans themselves are not pursuing higher education seriously. In fact America has to do more on the green card and visa front to attract talent more vigorously. In a globalised world America cannot afford to "assume" that talent will flock here. Venky himself now works in Cambridge UK than here in US. He prefers Cambridge, for many academic reasons despite the fact that he had to take pay cut.

Einstein lived for many years with no nationality. The entire world is home to genius.Let us celebrate achievements, let us celebrate genius and not get into parochial claims of nationalities.

A nobel for utopia and empty speeches.

The Nobel Peace prize has shamed itself into ignominy today by awarding a fatuous speaker who belts out rhetoric blather. The prize for Barack Obama evoked worldwide surprise and shock depending on who heard it. Surprise for his flock of devotees, shock for his detractors. Anyway the world dropped a collective jaw. We hear that the press hearing the committee announcement gasped. Barack took office on Jan 21st 2009, the nominations for the prize ended on Feb 1st 2009. He surely now ranks as an outlandish case of winning Nobel for 15 days of work.

Barack is the third sitting president to win the peace prize. Woodrow Wilson won it for creating the League of Nations, Teddy Roosevelt won for negotiating the end of Russo-Japanese war and Barack won for.....ah well nobody knows. Carter won it in more as a slap for Bush, Al Gore won for some scaremongering on Climate. Even with dubious merits both Carter and Gore had done some work.

Then there is Gorbachev who tore down an empire, AAng San Suu Kyi living a life of imprisonment, Anwar Sadat & Menachem Begin won for an audacious peace making, Shimon Peres And Arafat too got for peacemaking, Theresa got for a lifetime of service, Martin Luther King for lifetime service...

The Nobel citation says the award was for reaching out and proving negotiations help solve problem. Americans are scratching their heads to find out which problem got solved. The Cairo speech was wonderful rhetoric. Many muslims who listened inside the hall where happy to see a non-white male US president talk to them but many underscored that they would wait and judge based on what further actions Obama took. Apparently the Nobel committee felt no need to wait. He reached out yes and what did US get in return. Pakistan is in flames over US aid. Iran is still gesticulating. Iraqis want America to get out. Afhganistan is imploding.

On national security issue for fear of being seen as a weakling Obama actually has toed the Bush line much to the chagrin of his beloved left wing supporters. Guantanomo will be shut down but nobody knows when. CIA interrogation tapes are to be a secret. FISA bill, authorizing wire taps was voted with then Senator Obama's vote.

On Iran and negotiation its an abysmal record. Today US is threatening Iran with more stringent sanctions. Ah yes in that process US president was lectured by, of all people, a French President on the need to be resolute.

The Nobel prize is usually a capstone, a recognition of a lifetime achievement not an encuragement bromide for utopian lotus eaters.

Today the Nobel Prize has become like a "Kalaimamani" award in Tamil Nadu. Thankfully I wrote my blog on Nobel's before this and the reason I outlined, politicisation of the Peace andLiterature awards, has been proven to be valid.

Given that many a deserving soul lives outside media glare I cannot judge who else is suitable. But how about Bill Gates. The man has not only donated his entire, hard earned fortune, he has completely redesigned how philanthropy is done. How about Bill Clinton whose stellar work in Africa, getting AIDS medicines cheaper by negotiating with drug companies, has saved thousands of lives? How about Garry Kasparov who is waging a struggle against a repressive regime?

Thanks to Bush, hatred of Bush I mean, Obama won the presidency. Now Carter, Gore and Obama all need to collectively thank Bush for their Nobels.

2009 Nobel Prizes: Stellar year for Women and Diversity

The 2009 Nobel Prizes for Physics, Chemistry and Medicine were announced this week. We still await the prizes for literature, Peace and Economics. Of those the prize on Economics is not really a Nobel. The literature and peace prizes, especially the latter, are politicized. Hence this is a suitable juncture to blog on something wonderful this year. 3 women have won the prize this year. The other winners are an Indian (Tamilian), an Israeli (a woman), British, Canadian etc. Most of the prizes have been awarded to US citizens as most winners hold a US passport. Several, though hold dual citizenship. As a country US has garnered the most but its mostly thanks to immigrants.

For those who often question the practical applicability of the prize winning researches this year's topics are a resounding answer. The Chemistry winners research in RNA had spawned many a life saving antibiotic, the Physics winners in fiber optics made todays communication technologies a reality and for a device (CCD-Charge Couple Device) that is found on every digital camera or camcorder today, the Medicine winners have tapped into an area that can change how we treat cancer. The Medicine Prize and the Chemistry prizes have interesting angles to them.

The Medicine prize was awarded to three researchers, two wome, for their theories concerning "telomerase" an enzyme that is essential to protect 'telomeres' (the tips of DNA strands). NYT helpully served an analogy for telomeres. Telomeres are like the ends of shoe laces that are 'holding the strands together'. But for the telomeres when a chromosome divides the DNA strand would become unravelled. The enzyme 'telomerase' governs the function of telomeres. As we age the 'telomeres', the tip of a chromosome, becomes thinner and thinner during divisions and at one point the cell stops dividing. On the other hand cancer cells multiply because their telomeres are strong. Controlling telomeres could help medical researchers in their holy grail, defeating cancer.

How did 2 women, Elizabeth H. Blackburn of the University of California, San Francisco; Carol W. Greider of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, come about in the same field and win in the same year. "Dr. Greider said she ascribed this to a “founder effect,” the founder being Joseph Gall of Yale University. Dr. Gall trained Dr. Blackburn and other women, and they recruited others to the field “because there is a slight tendency for women to work with other women,” Dr. Greider said. She herself trained with Dr. Blackburn."

Also it is now noted that the paucity of women laureates has less to do with relative merits of the intelligence of women but more to do with the fact that researches are often awarded a prize decades after. The researches in telomeres dates back to early eighties just when women started breaking many a glass barrier. In the coming years we will hope to see more and I fondly hope my daughter would join their ranks too.

The Chemistry prize winner Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, other than his humble origin, is interesting for the fact that he is a PHYSICIST. HIs undergrad, postgrad, PhD were all in Physics. Right after that he started work in the Chemistry department of Yale. Yet again we are reminded of how Chemistry skates close to Physics (http://www.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk/ribo/homepage/ramak/education.html) . The Nobel citation also noted another fact, the three chemists who are sharing the prize did not collaborate but were more like competitors unusual for a shared citation. Often the preponderance of Jews is cited in unfavorable light. The Israeli chemist to win,Ada E. Yonath, is a woman.

When I was reading Marie Curie's biography I was struck by her upbringing. While she is rare genius (won both the Physics and Chemistry prize) her childhood had all the marks of a very scientifically literate upbringing thanks to her dad. NYT article on the medicine winners notes "All three of the prize winners seem to have had science in their genes, and certainly in their home environment. Dr. Greider is the daughter of two scientists with doctorates from the University of California, Berkeley, and she, too, has a Ph.D. from there. Dr. Szostak’s father was an engineer. Both of Dr. Blackburn’s parents were physicians". Malcolm Gladwell would play havoc with this info.

"Though Americans have again made a clean sweep of the Nobel medicine prize, two of the three winners are immigrants. Dr. Blackburn was born in Tasmania, Australia, and has dual citizenship; Dr. Szostak was born in London" (NYT). Amongst the Physics winners "All three of the winning scientists hold American citizenship. Dr. Kao, 75, was born in Shanghai and is also a British citizen, and Dr. Boyle, 85, is also a Canadian citizen". The Chemistry team is diverse with an American (of Indian origin) currently working in Cambridge-UK, an Israeli and an American.

One parting thought though. This is the second year in a row where the Physics prize is awared to theories that have had direct consumer impact. Last years prize went to the theories behind what made Ipods and other electronic devices possible. Is the Nobel committee straying from its adherence of awarding mostly to "theoretical physicists". Experimental physicists, most notably Edison, are usually given the cold shoulder by Nobel committees.

A wonderful year for diversity and science. Three cheers.

Nobel Prize, Irving Wallace and some trivia

Its the Nobel season of the year. So far the Nobel's for Medicine and Physics have been announced. Nobel prize has done itself great proud with its unimpeachable standards over 100+ years. Of course something of this kind of prestige and glamour has had its share of controversies too.

Mostly the science prizes have been devoid of any blatant controversy. The most politicized prize is the Peace prize, the more controversial, on merits, is the prize for literature. I guess one reason could be that a far wider population feels pretty qualified to comment on these prizes as the judges panel itself. Only a fraction of the world population has the intellectual heft to comment on a prize for the sciences. Whereas, almost everyone, depending on their political stripe feels free to opine on the choice of Yasser Arafat for the Peace prize.

Irving Wallace wrote a gripping book "The Prize" about Nobel Prize based on some 14 years of research. For whatever reason the movie version, starring Paul Newman, is billed as action. Irving later wrote a book on how he wrote "The Prize". "The Prize", has an interesting character, Count Jacobsson, whose prime duty is to serve as channel to voice arcane trivia and insider secrets of past prize winners.

W.B. Yeats practically lobbied the Nobel comittee to award Tagore the prize for "Gitanjali". Anti-semitism in the judges panel made them award the Physics prize to Einstein for his theory on photoelectric effect and NOT for the theories of Relativity. Note that Einstein recieved the prize in 1922, Eddington in the most famous experiment in 1919 had proved the General Theory of relativity. By the time he recieved the prize Einstein had seperated from his wife Mileva Maric, in his divorce papers, he confidently stated that when he gets the Nobel Prize he will give the money to her. Hmmm egoistic or confidence. Beholders eye.

The most notable exception in Physics was Edison. Nobel is given primarily to theoretical physicists and not experimental physicists. Justifiably so.

The literature prize is notable for omitting Leo Tolstoy, Sigmund Freud was passed over for medicine. The most unforgivable is omitting Gandhi for Peace prize. Gandhi is anyway to large for any prize. When the comittee found Martin Luther King Jr they made amends later. MLK was deeply influenced by Gandhi who in turn was inspired by America's Henry David Thoreau.

India's Chandrasekhar won the Nobel for his work on death of stars (Chandrasekhar limit), as American citizen. America later honored its adopted son by naming a satellite after Chandra. Indian satellites are named......why go there.

Bernard Shaw when awarded the prize, commented typically, "its a life belt thrown to someone who reached the shore".

Try finding Irving Wallace's "The Prize" in some used-book store or online at www.abebooks.com (excellent place to look for out of print books).

The preponderance of Jews and very sparse women Nobel laurates are topics of veritable controversies. The preponderance of Jews is non-issue because they are mostly winners of science prizes which are very open to scrutiny and nobody has ever questioned a prize in the sciences on merit. Nobel comittee is notorious for waiting too long until concrete proof emerges to award a science prize, some actually lose out because the prize is never given posthumously. The fact that a paltry number of women are winners is fodder for debate. I refrain from saying that they are not "represented" enough. This is a prize not an election. That goes for diversity too.