Andy Grove on Clipper

[Vinod Valloppillil <t-vinodv@microsoft.com>]

	I saw Larry King Live last night on CNN and the guests were Al Gore, 
Andy Grove (CEO/Intel), Dan Sussman (? -- I think that's his name, he 
was an editor at Newsweek), and Reed Hundt from the FCC.  As can be 
expected, it was another talk show about the "Data Superhighway".  It 
got interesting on two points:

	First, Larry King asked Andy Grove what he thought Intel should do for 
the Data Superhighway and he told Larry that since Al Gore was on the 
show, he'd rather get into what he thought the Feds _shouldn't_ do and 
discussed the path towards universal access to PC's without any federal 
involvement.  Al Gore tried to get involved by arguing that the Fed's 
were originally responsible for the computer revolution b/c of the 
Apollo program.  The two hit back and forth a couple of times on the 
issue.  At this point, I was patting Andy on the back for being a non-statist.

	Then, the editor from Newsweek said that in any show about the "Data 
Superhighway" the Clipper chip had to be discussed.  He then went on to 
say (and occasionally apologizing to Gore for being blunt) how the chip 
and the whole program were "loathed" by the industry and privacy 
advocates.  Larry asked Groves what he thought about it and he went off 
talking about the govt's legitimate right to tap analog media and how 
all this chip did was to extend that right into the digital realm.  I 
was shocked.  Even worse, Al Gore supported Andy's position and then 
when Larry King got back to the editor, he backed off saying "well, I 
just heard that people in the industry didn't like it." Larry asked for 
his opinion on it as a provider of information services and he said, 
"we just report on public opinions in our magazine and don't try to 
take positions on the issues.


	Yuck.