[jimbokun]

First, how many times are you willing to spin the wheel? It was pretty clear that he tried to start a business at least once before, and it blew up in his face. That probably changed his outlook on risk-reward tradeoffs.

Second, it confuses me that this guy is living off Social Security.

"After Apple, he spent two years creating the model shop at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, then was chief engineer at Thor Electronics in Salinas for 16 years. He holds a dozen patents, but he has never had the money to develop them into products."

Being a chief anything for 16 years in the Valley, I would think should let you sock enough away for a comfortable retirement, even investing conservatively. I suspect this guy is just bad at managing money all around, which he pretty much admits.

"I don't know why, it just never happened. It's probably because I'm not the businessman I should be."

[wooster]

Salinas isn't in Silicon Valley, it's in the Salinas Valley. It's mostly an agricultural area, and incomes are much lower.