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From Space to Personal Rapid Transit – Part 2 of a Conversation with Dr. Kornhauser
For those old enough to view it on television, the July 20th, 1969 landing of Apollo 11 on the moon is a “once in a lifetime moment.” Relatively few people were at the actual launch, but, as we learn in the above interview, Dr. Alain Kornhauser was able to share the moment with his parents…
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Saving a Railroad – Changing His Trajectory – Part 3 of a Conversation with Dr. Kornhauser
It started with a phone call at the end of the 1975 Spring semester. Representative James J. Florio’s office was looking for expert help to evaluate a reorganization plan for the bankrupt railroads in the Northeast Corridor. In many ways, the eyes of the entire country were on this potential legislation and it involved the…
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The Challenges of Selling at Retail and Competing with Behemoths – Part 4 of a Conversation with Alain Kornhauser
By relying on internally generated cash flow and never receiving outside investment, Dr. Alain Kornhauser explains how he was able to keep a firewall between his interests in ALK Technologies and his teaching at Princeton. From humble beginnings in 1979, ALK grew to approximately 200 people. In January 2013, it was sold to Trimble Navigation.…
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Seizing a New Opportunity and CoPilot – Part 5 of a Conversation with Dr. Alain Kornhauser
It is clear from Dr. Alain Kornhauser’s actions that he lives by the late Everett Christensen’s postulate about learning from, but not living in the past. An example of that is how he and his company, ALK Technologies, created a new market after a behemoth-crushing experience in the retail space. The sliced bread, as Kornhauser…
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Following His Students on the DARPA Challenge Journey – Part 6
Is the teacher really the student? One has to ask that question after listening to Dr. Alain Kornhauser describe his initial skepticism about his students’ desire to compete in the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge. It wasn’t long before the students had convinced this Princeton Professor to be the advisor in their efforts. One outcome of…
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Tech Talk with Techstination’s Fred Fishkin
From interviewing Amazon’s Jeff Bezos when he first started talking about selling books on the Internet to interviewing a peanut farmer who would go on to be president to being engulfed in the horror of 9/11, Fred Fishkin’s career as a reporter could have been written in Hollywood. Since the 1970s, he has been the…
