Stories of perseverance, charity, and Sam Kinison

Hi folks, early this morning we posted an article entitled, “SynaptiCAD buys rights to ASC tools, ASC looking for buyer.” The title captures the business side of the story but there’s an interesting human side to this one too that is captured in the sidebar of the article: ASC’s founder Jake Karrfalt, a standup guy, is retiring to among other things take care of his son, who was born with cerebral palsy and has been fighting leukemia in recent years.

It’s one example of the numerous personal stories that often don’t get covered in the the day to day business of electronic news and technical reporting. Often times the personal struggles and travails of the folks we interview on a day to day basis are not publicly known, but I have to admit that I become a bit of softy when I hear about the real struggles and stories of perseverance, the real lives of the folks making the news.

One of the many stories that has stuck with me over the years was from the days when I was covering the Cadence and State of California vs. Avanti criminal restitution hearing.

If you’ve been monitoring the EDA industry for a while, then you know what I’m talking about. If not, Google “avanti” ‘Cadence” “restitution,” you should find more than enough content on it. At any rate, I remember one day after covering the testimony of Avanti’s director of tool strategy (the technology brains behind Avanti CEO Gerald Hsu), Chi-Ping Hsu– in which he identified software code found in one of Avanti’s employees possession and in Avanti’s tool was indeed a copy of Cadence code, essentially putting to rest any doubt that Avanti did in fact steal Cadence code—he stepped off the stand and took a seat right next to me in the gallery area of the courtroom. During a break, he turned to me and said something to the effect of “I’m not here to defend these guys (pointing to the executives who were being prosecuted for the crime), I’m here for the rest of Avanti’s employees,” he said.

He went on to tell me that when he originally joined Avanti, which was after the crime took place, he, like so many Avanti employees, threw himself into working hard to produce tools (I don’t think avanti employees ever left work). He said when Cadence later accused Avanti of stealing its code, he believed Gerald Hsu, when Gerald claimed profusely that Avanti was innocent and spouted endlessly about “integrity”. Chi-Ping said during that time, he convinced many of his friends and fellow graduate students from U.C. Berkeley to come over to work for Avanti. “I’m doing it for them,” he told me.

Soon after giving this very damning testimony, Chi-Ping was let go from Avanti and as far as I know, didn’t get to cash in when soon after the trial ended Synopsys acquired Avanti. And I’m sure it would have been a lot of cash. Gerald Hsu walked away with a misdemeanor and tens of millions in cash, but Steven Wuu, the guy who stole the code went to San Quentin.

Years later, I was happy to see Chi-Pinig take the helm at synthesis startup Get-2-Chip. Fairly soon after that, his company was purchased by Cadence Design Systems and ironically played a significant part in rebuilding Cadence’s digital design flow. At last word, he still works at Cadence and is heading up the company’s power initiative.

There are a lot more serious examples of struggles and perseverance behind the stories, family members sick or dying and many that I’m sure there have been many more that folks haven’t bothered to share. But the human side, rather than the "win-win, best in class" always resonates more with me. And I’ve always detested the uber purist journalists who completely remove themselves from their subjects. The late, but once very loud comedian Sam Kinison used to have a skit about a camera man filming starving children in Ethiopia urging viewers to send money to help the starving children. Kinison would then say something to the effect of “WHY DON’T YOU HELP, CAMARA MAN—Put Down The Camera And Give The Kid A Sandwich. Or–Move Them To Where The Food Is.” It’s one of those things that’s funny, sick morose and true all at the same time. It’s also something I’ve taken to heart in my life.  I’ve certainly been proud to not only write about a worthy cause but I try to be very active in the process of raising money and donating for a good cause: like John Sanguinetti’s battle with a rare form of cancer, (saw John yesterday and he looks good) Toys for Tots and other worthy causes. I’m very proud to join together with my fellow employees here at EDN and Reed Business to raise money for Alex’s Lemonade Stand, a charity to help fight childhood cancer. For each click on an EDN story, our parent company is donating a penny to charity. For those of you who have been hip to this all day and have been clicking like mad, I’d like to thank you. Hopefully, together we can make a difference.

 If you’d like to share a story of perserverence within our community, feel free