Thesis Topic

It was the first day of graduate school, in the first class, in the then brand-new CS department. Two thirds of the faculty, cornered me: that is to say, Carver and Fred Thompson. "Do you know what your thesis topic will be?" they demanded.

I knew both Fred and Carver from undergraduate days, so the respectful thing was to ask their opinion rather than proffer my own.

"We think you should figure out how to implement Fred's systems with Carver's chips," they said.

"Funny," I replied, "that's pretty much what I had in mind."

The result became Teradata Corporation.