Folks like to rag on Bose products (and from a pure sound quality standpoint they are overpriced IMO) but Amar Bose was the best professor I had and his enthusiasm for engineering and acoustics showed in all of his lectures.
He's been good to MIT over the years (MIT students, faculty and affiliates get substantial discount) and this is another example of him giving back. I hope this encourages MIT to resurrect some of their acoustics programs (aside from a couple of projects coming out of the Media Lab and a telephony class or two, acoustics has been dead at MIT since the late 1990's) but I suspect they'll just use it as a cash cow.
Amar Bose was a good professor, and in making this donation to his alma mater, he continues to carry on the tradition of MIT graduates doing good things long after they've made a name for themselves.
His work today in no way lessens the impact of an audiophile's criticism of his company's products. Not only are they overpriced in consideration of value delivered, they are in many respects poor implements for faithfully reproducing sound.
But those criticisms are criticisms of product and market, not criticisms of people and principles.
I have a friend who works for Bose. Their product line is mostly acoustics, but they also do a lot of really interesting and varied research/innovation in a number of electrical and mechanical engineering fields.
I wouldn't say acoustics is dead at MIT. I participated in some very interesting ocean acoustics research in the last few years which has been published in Science a couple of times.
For anyone interested in reading about underwater ocean acoustics:
It's an interesting blind spot; when I first got interested in computer music and acoustics, I somehow just assumed that MIT would have something roughly analogous to Stanford's CCRMA or Berkeley's CNMAT (or France's IRCAM), but that wasn't the case. But I suppose no one university can do everything.
This is an incorrect title; the wrong conclusion may have been drawn.
Although he has given them majority shares they are nonvoting only. The terms of.the gift forbid them from selling the shares or participating in any management or governance of the company.
Bose is remaining a private / independent company still run by said founder. This is essentially a gift that should pay nice stock dividends for MIT.
I was fortunate to be a student of Dr. Bose many years ago. No other professor gave unlimited time on exams, plus free Toscanini's ice cream to boot!
Beyond those small perks, his stories working with Norbert Wiener and his inspirations have completely transformed and shaped my personality and how I solve problems. Above all, the highest integrity one would have with his/her work, has been my #1 beacon thanks to Dr. Bose. I will always cherish that end-of-term field trip at his corporate headquarters where I witnessed amazing demos (including the active automobile suspensions), and heard even more stories that made me believe that anything is possible when you put your mind and heart into it.
> I was fortunate to be a student of Dr. Bose many years ago. No other professor gave unlimited time on exams, plus free Toscanini's ice cream to boot!
Unlimited time and free food is a good thing? I went to Harvey Mudd and the only thing more terrifying than an unlimited time exam was an unlimited time exam with free food. It was a surefire indicator that you were about to lose a significant chunk of your time working on a nigh-impossible exam. I guess it's just weird to find out that this isn't universal.
Dr. Bose strongly believes that the company would have gone down a terrible path had they taken on any VC money. He had always wanted Bose Corp to focus on research, and thus all profits are poured into funding more R&D. No doubt this decision makes it possible for him to donate the majority of shares to MIT today. I still remember his words: "Those MBAs would have had me fired in no time."
So how did he fund the company initially? According to Dr. Bose, Lee handed over his entire life savings because he firmly believed that Bose would succeed!
It would be fascinating to know more about how Bose funded his company without venture captital. Has that story been told somewhere? And, who's "Lee"? Thanks!
What a wasteful donation. MIT has an over $8 billion endowment, and it teaches the most privileged technical students in the world. If MIT was at least trying to expand to teach more students, but of course it can't since it needs to maintain it's high selectivity in order to preserve its reputation. I can think of a thousand better donations than wasting it on rich ivy schools.
MIT just added a new dorm and is expanding its undergrad population by about 200-300 students. And even if it wasn't, it helps the general fund of research and other programs. I can think of a lot of things at MIT that aren't a waste of research money...
First, as was said already, MIT is actually expanding to teach more students. Second, the OCW initiative at MIT has given thousands of people access to educational material. Finally, it makes sense to me to donate money to an institution that takes "the most privileged technical students in the world" and transforms them from kids that are good at math/science to people that will change the world.
Dr. Bose has always felt that MIT was good to him and so he gives back. It is what it is.
BTW, Bose does have a Corporate Contributions Committee that people can solicit for donations if they feel they have a worth cause: [email protected] It didn't work for me (EAW generously stepped in) but others may have better luck.
It seems to me that "lifestyle company" is often a denigrating term used by VCs to insult companies that didn't need VCs to succeed, and that didn't choose an exit that would fit a VC-invested business model. Bose is a very large, very successful, international company. Most VCs would have been very pleased to have been involved in funding Bose. Bose could also go public at any time, and have a very large exit.
Regardless of the lack of an exit, the Bose founders are extremely rich today, and they don't have to remain involved in Bose for it to continue to operate and grow. I believe the original use of the term "lifestyle" implied an ongoing requirement for the founders to be involved to keep the company going, but it's come to mean "a company that did not raise huge sums of money and did not choose to exit via acquisition or IPO within a few years of founding".
In short, I don't like the term, as it provides little useful information about a company, and is colored by the most common users of the term (VCs).
A bit of a sensational title. With all the discussion on Hacker News lately about ownership of the company, this is interesting. Gave a majority of non-voting stock to MIT to get company dividends. That is all.
Interesting way of donating your fortune to a school.
I attended one special lecture by Prof. Bose while at MIT. I can't remember the subject matter specifically -- something about acoustics. But I remember the feeling of the man: humble, wise, noble. This news reminds me of that feeling.
If MIT will have no voting authority under this new arrangement then I wonder what the value of actually giving the shares is. Couldn't Bose just donate all their earnings to MIT every fiscal year instead, earn a tax deduction and avoid the dividend tax that will be assessed to MIT?
this is what is called as a life well lived, you do something great that creates an impact and then the earnings are donated back to enhance your creation or somebody else's as long as innovation happens for the +ve.Too good.
I am surprised at some comments that still people have the nag to find a fault in this thing as well :)
It says Bose donated a majority of the shares. How much is Bose (private company) worth? And how much in dividends can MIT expect from Bose on an annual basis?
Assuming a decent P/E ratio, total stock value is probably in the 10s of $billions minimum (I know, as a private company things are different, I'm just thinking off the top of my head).
This is an admirable and inspiring gesture. I only hope one day I can do this for my alma mater (moreso my high school than university). Thank you Dr. Bose.
I don't understand anything about the stock market, but giving someone a large portion of stock with the agreement that it can never be sold seems like the wrong thing to do when people need to spend more to bring us out of a recession.
MIT will receive dividends from the stock. It will never cost them anything to hold it even if it falls in value. Also, if it does fall horribly (unlikely) and is sold off, MIT would receive part of the sale proceeds (I believe). Either way, it's a win win for MIT.
> people need to spend more to bring us out of a recession.
every time i hear that i'm surprised what a fairy tale! Of course politicians forced to say comfortable "we need more spending" than the suicidal "we need more working", yet it is obvious for any sane normal person what only increased productivity and efficiency can get us out of this small hole-in-the-road current recession and the really big crises looming tomorrow - healthcare, energy, education - and the day after tomorrow - social security. Look at who's leading the recovery - the companies reporting large profits without much increased sales, if any. I.e. increased productivity and efficiency, less waste. The waste in the business is still extremely large, yet much smaller than compare to heydays of 2005-7. Instead of being wasted, at least some part of these profits would get invested and thus would spread around in the economy and help overall recovery.
[+] [-] Anechoic|15 years ago|reply
He's been good to MIT over the years (MIT students, faculty and affiliates get substantial discount) and this is another example of him giving back. I hope this encourages MIT to resurrect some of their acoustics programs (aside from a couple of projects coming out of the Media Lab and a telephony class or two, acoustics has been dead at MIT since the late 1990's) but I suspect they'll just use it as a cash cow.
[+] [-] horacio|15 years ago|reply
His work today in no way lessens the impact of an audiophile's criticism of his company's products. Not only are they overpriced in consideration of value delivered, they are in many respects poor implements for faithfully reproducing sound.
But those criticisms are criticisms of product and market, not criticisms of people and principles.
[+] [-] ohyes|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ethereon|15 years ago|reply
For anyone interested in reading about underwater ocean acoustics:
[1] http://www.sciencemag.org/content/323/5922/1734.full?ijkey=t...
[2] http://www.sciencemag.org/content/311/5761/660.full?ijkey=bc...
[+] [-] _delirium|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dereg|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rit|15 years ago|reply
Although he has given them majority shares they are nonvoting only. The terms of.the gift forbid them from selling the shares or participating in any management or governance of the company.
Bose is remaining a private / independent company still run by said founder. This is essentially a gift that should pay nice stock dividends for MIT.
[+] [-] jhamburger|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jackolas|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tt|15 years ago|reply
Beyond those small perks, his stories working with Norbert Wiener and his inspirations have completely transformed and shaped my personality and how I solve problems. Above all, the highest integrity one would have with his/her work, has been my #1 beacon thanks to Dr. Bose. I will always cherish that end-of-term field trip at his corporate headquarters where I witnessed amazing demos (including the active automobile suspensions), and heard even more stories that made me believe that anything is possible when you put your mind and heart into it.
[+] [-] masterzora|15 years ago|reply
Unlimited time and free food is a good thing? I went to Harvey Mudd and the only thing more terrifying than an unlimited time exam was an unlimited time exam with free food. It was a surefire indicator that you were about to lose a significant chunk of your time working on a nigh-impossible exam. I guess it's just weird to find out that this isn't universal.
[+] [-] ThomPete|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] clistctrl|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tt|15 years ago|reply
So how did he fund the company initially? According to Dr. Bose, Lee handed over his entire life savings because he firmly believed that Bose would succeed!
[+] [-] robg|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] uberc|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|15 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] guelo|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ernestipark|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] spenrose|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] snikolov|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Anechoic|15 years ago|reply
Dr. Bose has always felt that MIT was good to him and so he gives back. It is what it is.
BTW, Bose does have a Corporate Contributions Committee that people can solicit for donations if they feel they have a worth cause: [email protected] It didn't work for me (EAW generously stepped in) but others may have better luck.
[+] [-] robg|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SwellJoe|15 years ago|reply
Regardless of the lack of an exit, the Bose founders are extremely rich today, and they don't have to remain involved in Bose for it to continue to operate and grow. I believe the original use of the term "lifestyle" implied an ongoing requirement for the founders to be involved to keep the company going, but it's come to mean "a company that did not raise huge sums of money and did not choose to exit via acquisition or IPO within a few years of founding".
In short, I don't like the term, as it provides little useful information about a company, and is colored by the most common users of the term (VCs).
[+] [-] _pius|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] joshfinnie|15 years ago|reply
Interesting way of donating your fortune to a school.
[+] [-] yalogin|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] smackfu|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _pius|15 years ago|reply
http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-gradu...
[+] [-] smackfu|15 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] rajatmehta1|15 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] ahi|15 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] Anechoic|15 years ago|reply
Assuming a decent P/E ratio, total stock value is probably in the 10s of $billions minimum (I know, as a private company things are different, I'm just thinking off the top of my head).
[+] [-] kennethologist|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] executive|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zandorg|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rubergly|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 16s|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] VladRussian|15 years ago|reply
every time i hear that i'm surprised what a fairy tale! Of course politicians forced to say comfortable "we need more spending" than the suicidal "we need more working", yet it is obvious for any sane normal person what only increased productivity and efficiency can get us out of this small hole-in-the-road current recession and the really big crises looming tomorrow - healthcare, energy, education - and the day after tomorrow - social security. Look at who's leading the recovery - the companies reporting large profits without much increased sales, if any. I.e. increased productivity and efficiency, less waste. The waste in the business is still extremely large, yet much smaller than compare to heydays of 2005-7. Instead of being wasted, at least some part of these profits would get invested and thus would spread around in the economy and help overall recovery.
[+] [-] Encosia|15 years ago|reply