Word: sasson
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...miracle, and each helps make the other possible. But they are different worlds. Two Beltways. The office nameplates along @Large Software's one short hallway are an inspiration. They read like a 1990s version of Hollywood's World War II bomber crew. There's Andy Bang, Co Huang, Sharam Sasson, Maurizio Gianola. Edward Montgomery shares an office with Yuri Zhovnirovsky, Roberto Jeres bunks with Jen Yu, and Alex Sherstinsky is doubled up with Samir Elias. Pamela Reilly, Karen Cooper and Steven Kishi are down the hall...
Which is almost possible. I asked Sharam Sasson, 42, president and CEO of @Large Software, if he knew who Trent Lott is. Sasson, a highly educated, thoughtful and articulate research engineer, born in Iran but now an American citizen, said, "I don't know him." I also asked Joel Bellenson, the 32-year-old CEO of Pangea Systems, a 1991 biotech start-up. A few years and a few moves further along than @Large (though still, shall we say, preprofitable), Pangea is recently installed in a glamorous office overlooking a lake in downtown Oakland. Bellenson, who says he subscribes...
...speed up the development of new drugs. Or something. "Industrial Strength Bioinformatics" is the company's slogan. Its product, styled GeneWorld 2.0, "gives you the industrial-strength capacity you need when sequence data production exceeds analytical throughput." (Don't you hate it when that happens?) @Large's first product, Sasson says with a smile, is "one of the simplest for marketing people to explain." And he's right, sort of. It's software that enables employees to file expense reports on a corporate intranet. (What's an intranet? Ask Trent Lott.) The sales brochure promises a "Thin Client" with "Rich...
Neither Bellenson nor Sasson spends any time in Washington. Sasson has been there twice as a tourist and once on business when he worked for Bechtel. "It reminded me of Rome," he says, meaning the pomp and not the classical beauty of its architecture. He adds that it "has no relevance to high-tech industries." Bellenson has been there a few times for conferences and "sensed it's a closed environment...I was struck by how oblivious they are to the conditions of the poor, though they work with the poorest of the country right nearby." Sasson describes himself firmly...
...these guys in it to improve the world or make money? "It's one of those situations where they coincide," Bellenson says. Sasson won't get sucked into highfalutin moral speculation, commenting only on the excitement of the intranet. America's high-tech culture has indeed combined doing well and doing good--getting rich and making the world a better place--with more success, probably, than any similar-size group of people in the history of the world. And for biotech, especially, the miracles are just beginning. If the citizens of this Other Beltway wish to believe they're doing...