Interview with David Baltimore - Caltech Oral Histories

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Baltimore-91 BALTIMORE: It was Intel in particular. Yes, the whole high-tech world came apart in ’99 and 2000, that’s true. And his wealth was almost entirely in Intel; he had never diversified. I had once, just in an attempt to jump-start this— I must say, I worked very closely with Wally Weisman in all of this. Gordon was the chairman of the Board of Trustees and Wally was the vice chairman. I presented Gordon with a plan for a $2 billion infusion into Caltech, and he was not interested at that point in doing that; so he more or less rejected that plan, so we needed Plan B. And the campaign was Plan B. So Wally, who was now going to be chairman of the campaign and was my ally in all of this, was trying to figure out how to get to Gordon, to make clear to Gordon that he had to make a commitment to his gift before we structured the campaign because it was going to determine the size of the campaign and everything else that we did. Wally one day opened his mail and found a letter from Gordon saying that “I will commit $300 million from my foundation”— which he had just then established—“and an equivalent amount of money in Intel stock.” LIPPINCOTT: So, $600 million total BALTIMORE: Six hundred million total. Actually, he didn’t say how much. He said in the letter that he would give a $300 million draw on his foundation over ten years and a certain amount of Intel stock—I’ve forgotten what the number was—which would come in over time. The stock gift—he consciously said in the letter and had said in our discussion—was a way of shifting the uncertainty of the value of the stock from him to us, because he was giving it to us in share numbers, not in dollar denomination. That was a thing I understood. I understood from his point of view why he was doing that, because then he could define this gift, whereas he couldn’t define it otherwise, because it was a shifting resource. So I calculated its value. LIPPINCOTT: You looked into the future BALTIMORE: I looked into the future. I made a very conservative guess—I thought I was being conservative; in the end, actually, it was less than I thought. I think the stock was twenty-seven at the time, and I said “Well, let’s figure we could get thirty for it”—because the stock was way down at that point—and sized it on thirty. So I called Gordon and I said, “Gordon, we have to announce this gift.” He said, “Do we really have to announce it” I said, “Yes, Gordon, we have
Baltimore-92 to announce it.” Gordon’s humility is unbelievable; he didn’t want to announce it, not out of any embarrassment—he just didn’t think it was important, when it was the most important thing that had happened to Caltech. It was the largest single gift ever given to an academic institution. It was going to be the kickoff to the campaign, so I had to announce it—there was no question— and I had to announce a number. I couldn’t tell everybody in the world about the complications of it, because they don’t want to hear it. They want to hear a number. So I said to Gordon, “I estimate it at $600 million. Can I use that number” And he said, “Yes.” So we announced that, and it became the basis of the campaign. And so we figured that we could raise $800 million on top of that, and that’s where the $1.4 billion came from. LIPPINCOTT: And you did BALTIMORE: And we did. So, as part of this, we had to have a building plan, because in fact the big money was going to come in for buildings. It always does in these campaigns—except for Gordon, who gave money that largely ended up in the endowment. And one of those buildings was an astrophysics building—I’m answering your earlier question. LIPPINCOTT: Yes, you’re right. Well, had the astrophysics people been feeling pinched Were they in Downs [George W. Downs Laboratory of Physics] or something like that BALTIMORE: They were strewn around: They were in Robinson; they were in Downs; they were in various places. They’d never had the building they wanted. In 1965, the then president [Lee DuBridge] agreed to build them a building. It was in the previous campaign, and they never raised the money for it, but they had committed to building a building for the astrophysicists. This thing had been hanging on and hanging on and hanging on. So I said, “This is going to be something we do in this campaign—give the astrophysicists the building they need.” So we found Mr. [Charles H.] Cahill—actually, Tom [Thomas A.] Tombrello [chair of the Division of Physics, Mathematics, and Astronomy 1998-2008] did a terrific job in raising a lot of the money—and we built the building. LIPPINCOTT: What did they need a lot of space for Isn’t it just cerebral stuff
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DAVID BALTIMORE (b. 1938) INTERVIEW
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CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
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Baltimore-iii 51-55 1975 Nobel Priz
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Baltimore-2 BALTIMORE: The family w
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Baltimore-4 LIPPINCOTT: Oh! That wa
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Baltimore-6 BALTIMORE: Suburban, si
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Baltimore-8 I remember a big thing
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Baltimore-10 college at that point;
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Baltimore-12 BALTIMORE: Yes. That e
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Baltimore-14 BALTIMORE: No, I don
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Baltimore-16 BALTIMORE: I did not w
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Baltimore-18 BALTIMORE: Yes, that
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Baltimore-20 LIPPINCOTT: How big a
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Baltimore-22 BALTIMORE: No, this wa
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Baltimore-24 BALTIMORE: That’s ri
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Baltimore-26 BALTIMORE: I spent all
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Baltimore-28 BALTIMORE: No, I think
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Baltimore-30 BALTIMORE: Polio and i
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Baltimore-32 LIPPINCOTT: So your Ph
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Baltimore-34 BALTIMORE: No, I’m n
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Baltimore-36 BALTIMORE: Oh, yes, I
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Baltimore-38 BALTIMORE: It was year
Page 45 and 46: Baltimore-40 LIPPINCOTT: No, it was
Page 47 and 48: Baltimore-42 DAVID BALTIMORE SESSIO
Page 49 and 50: Baltimore-44 BALTIMORE: The Cookery
Page 51 and 52: Baltimore-46 appears in Howard’s
Page 53 and 54: Baltimore-48 BALTIMORE: Yes, it’s
Page 55 and 56: Baltimore-50 The experiment I descr
Page 57 and 58: Baltimore-52 room and they didn’t
Page 59 and 60: Baltimore-54 LIPPINCOTT: OK. Renato
Page 61 and 62: Baltimore-56 all the pictures that
Page 63 and 64: Baltimore-58 and the profits from t
Page 65 and 66: Baltimore-60 contemporary. So that
Page 67 and 68: Baltimore-62 BALTIMORE: And that’
Page 69 and 70: Baltimore-64 BALTIMORE: No, it was
Page 71 and 72: Baltimore-66 understand that. Becau
Page 73 and 74: Baltimore-68 BALTIMORE: I still had
Page 75 and 76: Baltimore-70 LIPPINCOTT: Were they
Page 77 and 78: Baltimore-72 BALTIMORE: This was—
Page 79 and 80: Baltimore-74 LIPPINCOTT: You don’
Page 81 and 82: Baltimore-76 a biology school, in s
Page 83 and 84: Baltimore-78 LIPPINCOTT: OK. So on
Page 85 and 86: Baltimore-80 Judy’s book calls it
Page 87 and 88: Baltimore-82 never came to pass for
Page 89 and 90: Baltimore-84 BALTIMORE: I don’t b
Page 91 and 92: Baltimore-86 BALTIMORE: Well, he wa
Page 93 and 94: Baltimore-88 BALTIMORE: We intervie
Page 95: Baltimore-90 about this, but when I
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Page 101 and 102: Baltimore-96 BALTIMORE: Yes. LIPPIN
Page 103 and 104: Baltimore-98 LIPPINCOTT: You mean h
Page 105 and 106: Baltimore-100 LIPPINCOTT: OK. In th
Page 107 and 108: Baltimore-102 BALTIMORE: I had no i
Page 109 and 110: Baltimore-104 BALTIMORE: So I was g
Page 111: Baltimore-106 BALTIMORE: Well, not
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Interview with David Baltimore - Caltech Oral Histories

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