Does no one remember KAAAAHHN?!!
5:30 PM -- With folks around the Valley praising or making fun of Heidi Roizen's CD, I'm surprised no one's mentioning Philippe Kahn.
Maybe it's because the two have pretty much nothing in common. Let's compare them anyway:
Table 1: Tale of the Tapes
Year | 2007 | c.1991 |
Person | Heidi Roizen | Philippe Kahn |
Job | VC, formerly with Mobius | CEO, Borland Software |
Project | Music to exercise by, inspired by Roizen's weight-loss experience | Two or three CDs given to customers and employees |
Genre | Honestly, I'm afraid to listen. | Jazz/smooth jazz. |
Role | Lyricist | Flute and sax player; composer on some tracks |
Helpers | A songwriter and a small gaggle of vocalists | Big names in contemporary jazz: John Abercrombie, Alex Acuna, Dave Liebman, etc. |
Funded by | Roizen | Borland. Oops! Kahn eventually reimbursed the company. |
Situation | Feel-good story: She's left the VC world to pursue her passion | Feel not-so-good story: Kahn was continually under fire, partly for spending Borland money while the company was losing money. He resigned from Borland in 1995. |
I actually own one of the Kahn CDs, and I'm listening to it for the first time in years. Kahn himself isn't a bad flautist, but his taste is sappy -- no surprise, given that new age and smooth jazz were having their day back then. There's also a rap about how the "personal communicator," Kahn's vision of what would become the smartphone, will set us all free or something -- ugh.
Fortunately for me, this arrived in the mail minutes ago. Sorry, Philippe, you're going back on the shelf.
— Craig Matsumoto, West Coast Editor, Light Reading
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