Earl David Sacerdoti – 50th Reunion Essay

Earl David Sacerdoti

115 Camille Court

Alamo, CA 94507-2413

earl@copernican.com

Spouse(s): Sheryl Sacerdoti (25 years as of 2018)

Child(ren): Cory Sacerdoti (1973), Tod Sacerdoti (1977), Alexandria Nichandros (1980), Theo Nichandros (1983), Debra Kaplan (1991)

Grandchild(ren): Katelyn Sacerdoti (2006), Skye Sacerdoti (2011), Sienna Sacerdoti (2014)

Education: Yale College, BA Psychology 1969; Stanford University, MS Computer Science 1972, PhD Computer Science 1975

Career: Researcher for 9 years; serial entrepreneur for 40 years; management consultant, expert witness, inventor for 30 years

Avocations: Fencing, skiing, Tantra yoga, energy practice

College: Timothy Dwight

I’ve led a diverse life. I’ve enjoyed five overlapping careers, three (non-overlapping) wives, and five children (all now too old to be over a lap). I’ve worked as a researcher, entrepreneur, management consultant, inventor, and expert witness, all generally advancing the practical use of advanced software. While doing all this, I’ve pursued passions in dance, skiing, fencing, Tantra yoga, and energy practice.

As one of the youngest members of our class, and a late bloomer to boot, I wasn’t meaningfully engaged with Yale’s social scene. I wasn’t a Yale legacy; I was just the second person in my family to earn a college degree—my mother got hers the year before I entered Yale. But I internalized an expectation of leadership and accomplishment, and learned that failure can be useful in one’s life, and that avoiding received truths can be fun and rewarding.

One major lesson I learned at Yale was the ability to fail. I intended to major in math, but ran into a brick wall as a sophomore when I discovered I lacked the temperament to read my analysis text at much below novel speed. After failing the course, I switched my major to psychology. When my friend and fellow TDer Ron Rivest enthused about the first book of published papers in artificial intelligence that he’d found at the Coop, I saw a future using AI to help understand cognition. Ron later talked someone in the School of Management into letting us operate an unused IBM 1620, a “business computer” whose hardware computed in base 10, in the basement. Inspired by one of those papers, we implemented a neural network, which we taught to distinguish horizontal lines from vertical ones.

Yale prepared me well for building a satisfactory “objective data” report. I left Yale knowing I wanted to lead a business based on AI by age 35, but without much other vision. But most of what I learned, and most accomplishments that I value, were not even on the radar at graduation. The most important values I learned at Yale weren’t taught in courses but lived by and with my friends: compassion, respect, kindness, and the extraordinary leverage that comes from people trusting one another to be effective together. I’ve applied those learnings in business and with family and friends, and I’m still learning.

I most value my family, my friends, my iconoclastic version of a spiritual practice, and my fortunate good health.

My defining characteristic is probably my family history. As the eldest child and descendant of refugees whose lives were disrupted (lethally, violently, or, for my parents, merely completely), I’ve carried an unconscious obligation to reestablish the family in a new country and culture. I had an epiphany two years ago, skiing follow-the-leader behind my five-year-old granddaughter and 38-year-old son Tod (’99—a legacy; go figure!). Behind my confident granddaughter backed by my successful son, I experienced her unquestioned belonging in this society, and I felt I’d achieved an ancestral obligation to replant the family.