I don’t do well alone.

And I spend so much time by myself.

Last night we went to a restaurant by the beach that was not. Ty found it, but it had moved. But the mall location, although a disappointment, didn’t put a damper on the evening, because of the conversation.

Ty Roberts founded Gracenote. You know how you insert your CD into your computer and the titles come down? That’s what Gracenote does. But not what it did originally. Originally, it was a company that created software for those giant CD changers, you know, with 300 discs, the ones that went the way of the Dodo Bird.

This was after Ty left Apple.

He was sitting there one day and David Bowie called. Just the main number, the switchboard, Bowie wanted to talk to someone in music. Ty ended up with the call. He didn’t believe it was David. But it was.

They ended up doing an interactive disc. Ty formed a company to do that. Then he wondered why you just couldn’t do the same online. You see Ty’s an engineer, a coder, he not only fixes problems, he finds solutions for stuff no one else is thinking about. It’s the same ethos that drove Steve Wozniak.

Also at the table was Alexander Shuglin. From SIBERIA!

"You grew up in Siberia? How cold was it?"

Minus 40 in the winter. And plus 40 in the summer. Kind of like Minnesota. The worst of both worlds. And the next big city was hundreds of kilometers away, and Moscow thousands. Why did Irkutsk exist? Because that’s where they built MiGs.

Wow.

Alexander was a musician. The band he joined was shut down by the government. But eventually he became a writer, after Perestroika, he’s had a plethora of number ones, and multiple records of the year.

What did he do with the money?

He reinvested it. Put a little in the bank, but lost it all. His friend who ran the institution got a margin call. But it didn’t bother Alexander… Whew!

And then I got into it with Tod Machover. A professor at the MIT Media Lab. His group was responsible for Guitar Hero and Rock Band. He comes up with new instruments. And writes operas. And is full of energy. Not every rock star is on the pop charts.

And calling it a night after the conversation was extended in the air conditioning of the lobby I fell asleep and woke up too early.

Because now I was on my own. Everybody else was leaving today. I am leaving tomorrow.

I can go my own way. But a low level depression set in. But I put on my clothes and ambled down to a breakfast that is a smorgasbord of delicacies, especially the shui mai, which I’ve been eating every morning.

And that’s where I found Ralph Simon. Who invited me to sit with himself and Jim Griffin and Peter Jenner.

And that’s when the discussion got interesting. Americans are born to be creative, to challenge authority, the Chinese are all about replicating the master. At least that’s what Jim said, I’ve never been to China.

Peter said that the U.K. was now all about creativity. That a politician was better off being seen with Peter Gabriel than a banker. Yup, the U.K. had two axes, banking and intellectual property, the former is in the crapper, expect the government to incentivize the latter.

And Ralph talked about meeting with government bigwigs in New Orleans. Population is low and rents are now cheap. They want to encourage a burgeoning arts scene. Residents just won first prize at Sundance.

Art can change the world.

But only a small sliver of people can be artists. They’ve got to be willing to march to their own drummer and be selfish. We need them.