One of the most intriguing stories I have read in recent times is that of the Source Code.
You can find lots of articles about it if you Google it, but here's what I typed up.
This is the story of a Dutch electrician named Jan Sloot - an average Joe-type - who was working on a revolutionary compression technology that would reduce the size of video and audio by a factor of 2,000,000. He spent 20 years of his life working on it.
A few years ago, Sloot reeled some investors in. They were non-tech people and invested their money in a leap of faith. One of his investors contacted Roel Pieper, former CEO of Tandem, a computer company of some sorts that was sold to Compaq for $3.5 billion. Pieper, by that time a corporate bigwig at Dutch electronics titan Philips, gave Jan Sloot 20 minutes of his time to demonstrate the 'source code'. Sloot, very afraid of the possibility that his compression code might be stolen, went to Amsterdam with his investors and met with Pieper. Along with him, he brought a small box, no larger than 5 packs of cigarettes, and a formatted bank card, like this:
See the data storage thingy? It's the gold square onder the word 'Europas'. It holds 64 kilobyte of data. Jan Sloot shoved the card into the small box, played 16 full movies simultaneously and even played with the playback speed etc. Simply said, Pieper's mouth fell open and the only words he could utter were "That's it".
Soon enough, Pieper, who had a lot of contacts in the US, took Sloot, his investors and the mysterious device to the States. Sloot kept the device with him at all times, paranoid of what could possibly happen. Pieper took Sloot and his technology to the likes of Charles Wang (Computer Associates), Tom Perkins (Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers) and spoke with the likes of Bill Gates. He tried to get as many companies on board for the new software to make as much money as possible.
Back in Holland, they went to bank giant ABN Amro and received a sum of 50 million Dutch guilders to start up a company built around the Source Code. The company was called The Fifth Force, Inc. One night, in Roel Pieper's house, Sloot showed off his software one last time and Tom Perkins said to him, "Mr Sloot, you are going to be the richest man on earth". Predictions showed that within 4 years, Jan Sloot would have more than $100 billion in his bank account.
For a few weeks, Sloot worked on a description of his software (for the software only existed in the device and in his head) that he had to give to a notarist. One day before the deal was going to be sealed, one day before the invention of the century would become unstoppable, one day before Jan Sloot was going to receive 50 million in his bank account, Sloot dies of a heart attack in his backyard.
His office, usually very messy, was found cleaned up. The device was gone and the notes were gone. Who took it? No one knows. Some say it was Pieper. Some say it was Sloot's son. One thing is for sure: the Source Code was buried along with Jan Sloot.
You can find lots of articles about it if you Google it, but here's what I typed up.
This is the story of a Dutch electrician named Jan Sloot - an average Joe-type - who was working on a revolutionary compression technology that would reduce the size of video and audio by a factor of 2,000,000. He spent 20 years of his life working on it.
A few years ago, Sloot reeled some investors in. They were non-tech people and invested their money in a leap of faith. One of his investors contacted Roel Pieper, former CEO of Tandem, a computer company of some sorts that was sold to Compaq for $3.5 billion. Pieper, by that time a corporate bigwig at Dutch electronics titan Philips, gave Jan Sloot 20 minutes of his time to demonstrate the 'source code'. Sloot, very afraid of the possibility that his compression code might be stolen, went to Amsterdam with his investors and met with Pieper. Along with him, he brought a small box, no larger than 5 packs of cigarettes, and a formatted bank card, like this:
See the data storage thingy? It's the gold square onder the word 'Europas'. It holds 64 kilobyte of data. Jan Sloot shoved the card into the small box, played 16 full movies simultaneously and even played with the playback speed etc. Simply said, Pieper's mouth fell open and the only words he could utter were "That's it".
Soon enough, Pieper, who had a lot of contacts in the US, took Sloot, his investors and the mysterious device to the States. Sloot kept the device with him at all times, paranoid of what could possibly happen. Pieper took Sloot and his technology to the likes of Charles Wang (Computer Associates), Tom Perkins (Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers) and spoke with the likes of Bill Gates. He tried to get as many companies on board for the new software to make as much money as possible.
Back in Holland, they went to bank giant ABN Amro and received a sum of 50 million Dutch guilders to start up a company built around the Source Code. The company was called The Fifth Force, Inc. One night, in Roel Pieper's house, Sloot showed off his software one last time and Tom Perkins said to him, "Mr Sloot, you are going to be the richest man on earth". Predictions showed that within 4 years, Jan Sloot would have more than $100 billion in his bank account.
For a few weeks, Sloot worked on a description of his software (for the software only existed in the device and in his head) that he had to give to a notarist. One day before the deal was going to be sealed, one day before the invention of the century would become unstoppable, one day before Jan Sloot was going to receive 50 million in his bank account, Sloot dies of a heart attack in his backyard.
His office, usually very messy, was found cleaned up. The device was gone and the notes were gone. Who took it? No one knows. Some say it was Pieper. Some say it was Sloot's son. One thing is for sure: the Source Code was buried along with Jan Sloot.
