Modest and soft-spoken, Andrew Viterbi characterizes himself as a “reluctant capitalist,” who has given large sums of money to education and the arts.
Best known in San Diego as the chief technical officer and co-founder of Qualcomm, his academic work has brought him equal satisfaction. The Viterbi algorithm, among his other contributions to electrical engineering, changed the world as we know it from cellphone communications and Wi-Fi, missile tracking and deep-space communications, to speech recognition and high-speed DNA analysis. At its most basic, the Viterbi algorithm separates signals from background noise and predicts the most likely outcome among complex events.
The U-T asked Viterbi about his career and giving back to the community.
Q: How did you get involved in your career?
A: I was a refugee from Italian fascism as a child, and though my father was a doctor, we had to start over. I grew up in very limited means, with what some would call socialist views, certainly those of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
As I shared in the benefits of this country, and learned that hard work and entrepreneurship are the ways to contribute to society, I became very much for entrepreneurial capitalism, but it came to me later in life. I had the good fortune to come to the right place at the right time, California and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at Caltech.
Through hard work — work I really enjoyed — I guess I made a reputation. And when the opportunity came, I got involved in entrepreneurial work, although in those days it was always completely government sponsored, space communications, and we formed first Linkabit and then Qualcomm.
The satisfaction from my research was more satisfaction than the money I made. It’s not out of modesty and it’s not out of criticism of our capitalistic system but, still, academic research gave me the greatest highs. Qualcomm was quite an experience, as well, since we were up against the giants and we had to prove to all the major carriers and manufacturers in the world that our technology was better. I’ve had a great ride.
Q: What do you mean, “reluctant capitalist”?
A: Well, my origins were anything but. I believe the gap between rich and poor, between CEO and the ordinary worker’s salary is obscene, even though some of my best friends are CEOs and I’ve certainly participated, but that has become the biggest problem facing our country. The biggest problem in technology is that we don’t train enough people and we don’t have enough respect and interest in science and technology or as they call it today, STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics).
Q: In terms of charities and philanthropies, what do you focus on?
A: I feel I owe a lot to education. So I’ve given to middle and high schools, starting with my own, and then those of my children, who all went to public schools and universities, and my grandchildren who are in private ones. We have given to public universities — UCSD, Berkeley’s institute for advanced mathematics — and private, too — MIT and USC. Also the health sciences in San Diego. And the arts, two areas I enjoy a lot, the Old Globe and the opera, which comes from my Italian tradition. My wife and I also feel very strongly about giving back to our veterans, who have done so much for us and get so little credit, getting more than they used to in the Vietnam era, but it still borders on being a disgrace. So we give over in Oceanside. And we support some things in Israel, in particular a school on the Gaza border, which has been attacked almost daily by Katyusha rockets.
Q: What’s your advice to people who want to make San Diego a better place?
A: Well, first of all, come and look. It’s the most desirable place to live in the United States and maybe in the world. We’re still shy on talent in telecommunications and electronics in general, the Internet, networking, even biotech, which is blossoming and blooming. We need to find a way for talented foreign-born students to stay in San Diego and the U.S. once they get their advanced degrees, especially in science and engineering. We fail to give them green cards, and they go back, and it is a tremendous loss to our society and commerce. We are shooting ourselves in the foot.
Q: Who are the people who have most inspired you?
A: My professors and teachers. I went to the oldest high school in the United States, very unique, Boston Latin. I was very motivated but they certainly helped me to go in the right direction. Also some of the engineers I worked with at JPL, my colleagues in academia, and my colleagues in industry, Irwin Jacobs, for one. And also Jack Wolf, my very good friend who was the father of modern digital processing in memories. It was such pleasure to work with all of them.
Q: If you could wish for just one thing to make San Diego a better place, what would that be?
A: An end to the politics and this petty arguing and hostility among our elected officials, and that’s not just the local scene, but in the national scene, which obviously impacts us as well.
Q: Tell us something that people might be surprised to know about you.
A: I enjoy reading history, all kinds of history. The history of my own era, going back to pre-World War II, but also going back to the origins of civilization.
Best known in San Diego as the chief technical officer and co-founder of Qualcomm, his academic work has brought him equal satisfaction. The Viterbi algorithm, among his other contributions to electrical engineering, changed the world as we know it from cellphone communications and Wi-Fi, missile tracking and deep-space communications, to speech recognition and high-speed DNA analysis. At its most basic, the Viterbi algorithm separates signals from background noise and predicts the most likely outcome among complex events.
The U-T asked Viterbi about his career and giving back to the community.
Q: How did you get involved in your career?
A: I was a refugee from Italian fascism as a child, and though my father was a doctor, we had to start over. I grew up in very limited means, with what some would call socialist views, certainly those of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
As I shared in the benefits of this country, and learned that hard work and entrepreneurship are the ways to contribute to society, I became very much for entrepreneurial capitalism, but it came to me later in life. I had the good fortune to come to the right place at the right time, California and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at Caltech.
Through hard work — work I really enjoyed — I guess I made a reputation. And when the opportunity came, I got involved in entrepreneurial work, although in those days it was always completely government sponsored, space communications, and we formed first Linkabit and then Qualcomm.
The satisfaction from my research was more satisfaction than the money I made. It’s not out of modesty and it’s not out of criticism of our capitalistic system but, still, academic research gave me the greatest highs. Qualcomm was quite an experience, as well, since we were up against the giants and we had to prove to all the major carriers and manufacturers in the world that our technology was better. I’ve had a great ride.
Q: What do you mean, “reluctant capitalist”?
A: Well, my origins were anything but. I believe the gap between rich and poor, between CEO and the ordinary worker’s salary is obscene, even though some of my best friends are CEOs and I’ve certainly participated, but that has become the biggest problem facing our country. The biggest problem in technology is that we don’t train enough people and we don’t have enough respect and interest in science and technology or as they call it today, STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics).
Q: In terms of charities and philanthropies, what do you focus on?
A: I feel I owe a lot to education. So I’ve given to middle and high schools, starting with my own, and then those of my children, who all went to public schools and universities, and my grandchildren who are in private ones. We have given to public universities — UCSD, Berkeley’s institute for advanced mathematics — and private, too — MIT and USC. Also the health sciences in San Diego. And the arts, two areas I enjoy a lot, the Old Globe and the opera, which comes from my Italian tradition. My wife and I also feel very strongly about giving back to our veterans, who have done so much for us and get so little credit, getting more than they used to in the Vietnam era, but it still borders on being a disgrace. So we give over in Oceanside. And we support some things in Israel, in particular a school on the Gaza border, which has been attacked almost daily by Katyusha rockets.
Q: What’s your advice to people who want to make San Diego a better place?
A: Well, first of all, come and look. It’s the most desirable place to live in the United States and maybe in the world. We’re still shy on talent in telecommunications and electronics in general, the Internet, networking, even biotech, which is blossoming and blooming. We need to find a way for talented foreign-born students to stay in San Diego and the U.S. once they get their advanced degrees, especially in science and engineering. We fail to give them green cards, and they go back, and it is a tremendous loss to our society and commerce. We are shooting ourselves in the foot.
Q: Who are the people who have most inspired you?
A: My professors and teachers. I went to the oldest high school in the United States, very unique, Boston Latin. I was very motivated but they certainly helped me to go in the right direction. Also some of the engineers I worked with at JPL, my colleagues in academia, and my colleagues in industry, Irwin Jacobs, for one. And also Jack Wolf, my very good friend who was the father of modern digital processing in memories. It was such pleasure to work with all of them.
Q: If you could wish for just one thing to make San Diego a better place, what would that be?
A: An end to the politics and this petty arguing and hostility among our elected officials, and that’s not just the local scene, but in the national scene, which obviously impacts us as well.
Q: Tell us something that people might be surprised to know about you.
A: I enjoy reading history, all kinds of history. The history of my own era, going back to pre-World War II, but also going back to the origins of civilization.
