But there were
disappointments, too. None as painful as the case of Jan Sloot,
introduced by an old friend from
the Dutch Phillips on whose board Perkins had served for two years.
Sloot, a spare-time inventor, had spent most of his life as a television
repair technician and the last 15 years on
his invention. The inventor's idea involved a revolutionary concept -
putting two hours of video, including
sound, on a smart card. It seemed loony, yet looked like the idea of a
lifetime. The demonstration left Perkins,
the man with hundreds of deals behind him, excited, unable to sleep that
night, and eager to discuss the next
step.
He phoned his friend early the next day. "After you left," the friend
said, "the inventor collapsed, we rushed
him to hospital and he died."
"But we are still doing the deal," said Perkins.
"Yes, we own the technology," he was told, "but we have to find the
compiler. Without it the system doesn't work."
It never showed up. After 15 years of work and the sudden prospect of
acknowledgement and reward, poor Jan
Sloot died - in a brief state of ecstasy, his life fulfilled. And so
ended the "deal of a lifetime".
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