[Ipg-smz] Fwd: Churchill Club ceases operations

Fri Mar 20 23:05:14 UTC 2020

Rats. I met a lot of great contacts at those events and learned a lot about
the inner workings of Silicon Valley.

One of my most memorable Churchill Club gatherings is described in my 2011
eWEEK story:
https://www.eweek.com/networking/how-apple-dodged-a-sun-buyout-former-execs-mcnealy-zander-tell-all

It explains how Sun Microsystems almost bought Apple for a bare bones share
right before Jobs came back and saved the company with the iMac in 1996 or
'97. Good thing they didn't, apparently. CEO Scott McNealy said onstage, "
"If we had bought Apple, there wouldn't have been iPods or iPads ... I'd
have (screwed) that up."

Never will forget that moment. The whole conversation was videoed, and
there's a link to it in the story.

Hopefully, the Churchill Club will rise again some day. Makes you wonder if
a lot of institutions like this are done for.

/cp

On Fri, Mar 20, 2020 at 3:21 PM David Needle via Ipg-smz <
ipg-smz at netpress.org> wrote:

>
> From the sad but inevitable file - the Churchill Club was a Silicon Valley
> institution founded by Rich Karlgaard (currently publisher of Forbes) and
> Tony Uphoff (the founder of Upside magazine) 35 years ago (press release
> below).
> Pretty much all the big names in tech have spoken at Churchill Club events
> at one time or another, but it's a brutal time to be in the live meeting
> event business and without sponsors it was impossible to keep it going -
> even with the help of many volunteers.
>
> Will be missed.
> ---------- Forwarded message ---------
> From: Karen Tucker
>
> Dear David,
>
>
>
> This is a courtesy advance notice to you as a supporter and friend of the
> Churchill Club. After an amazing 35-year run, we are sad to report that
> Churchill Club is disbanding. An announcement is going out to our mailing
> list and a press release will be issued shortly this afternoon (see release
> at the bottom of this message).
>
>
>
> Over the course of the past year, as you may be aware, we explored changes
> to our business model, including promising and exciting potential
> partnerships. But recently we experienced escalated numbers of reschedules
> and cancellations as well as difficulty in securing enough sponsorship to
> support our programming in the near term. As the coronavirus COVID-19
> global pandemic escalated, our options for continuing as a self-standing
> organization diminished rapidly in the face of daunting social and economic
> constraints.
>
>
>
> We are still in talks to provide a home (and endowment) for the Churchill
> Club archive of content.
>
>
>
> Any Churchill business-related inquiries may be sent to
> info at churchillclublegacy.org after today.
>
>
>
> Thank you for all you contributed, David.  It was a great run.
>
>
>
> Onward,
>
> Karen
>
>
>
> Karen Tucker
>
> CEO
>
> Churchill Club
>
>
>
>
>
> *AFTER STORIED 35-YEAR-RUN, SILICON VALLEY’S CHURCHILL CLUB CEASES
> OPERATIONS*
>
>
>
> *SAN JOSE – March 20, 2020* — Churchill Club CEO Karen Tucker today
> announced the long-running Silicon Valley thought leadership forum will
> cease operations. “After an amazing 35-year run, I am sad to report that
> Churchill Club must disband, Tucker said. “The proliferation of technology
> and business-related events and speaker forums—in both the digital and real
> worlds—has been making it increasingly difficult for small non-profit
> organizations such as ours to compete and thrive.”
>
>
>
> “We were exploring changes to our business model and potential new
> directions and partnerships when a dip in short-term corporate sponsorship
> occurred early this year. The impact of reduced financial support has now
> been compounded by the global coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic, forcing us to
> make this unfortunate and difficult decision,” Tucker concluded.
>
>
>
> *Complimentary Membership Offers to CHM*
>
> Working closely with the Computer History Museum, Churchill Club has
> arranged for all current members to be offered complimentary memberships to
> CHM. Members will be contacted individually to take advantage of the offer.
>
>
>
> *Churchill Club – A Storied History*
>
> Churchill Club has been the premier independent thought leadership forum
> in Silicon Valley since 1985, pursuing a mission to strengthen innovation,
> economic growth and social good. The first meeting of Churchill Club was
> November 12, 1985, featuring Robert Noyce, integrated circuit pioneer and
> founder of Fairchild Semiconductor and Intel. Churchill Club was founded by
> Rich Karlgaard, now publisher of *Forbes* magazine, and Tony Perkins,
> former editor-in-chief of *Upside Magazine* and *AlwaysOn*. They and a
> group of friends created an organization dedicated to producing programs
> where “important people say important things” – dubbing the club after the
> great orator, Winston Churchill.
>
>
>
> Thereafter, the Churchill Club stage brought tech industry giants,
> legends, rock stars and other critical thinkers together in iconic
> conversations to examine the implications of “what’s new, next, and not
> widely known,” unfolding trends and future opportunities. Speakers have
> included IBM CEO Ginni Rometty; Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, current
> CEO Satya Nadella, and former CEO Steve Ballmer; Google co-founders Sergey
> Brin and Larry Page, and former chairman Eric Schmidt; Oracle founder Larry
> Ellison; Netflix founder and CEO Reed Hastings; SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon
> Musk; LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner; Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg; Intel
> co-founder, the late Andy Grove and former Intuit chairman, the late Bill
> Campbell. Among prominent investors who have graced the stage were Vinod
> Khosla, Peter Thiel, Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz, Ron Conway, Mary Meeker
> and Roger McNamee. The Churchill Club stage also hosted a diverse
> collection of luminaries from outside of tech who have had impact for
> societal good, including the filmmaker James Cameron, actor James Caan,
> best-selling author Michael Lewis, Hollywood talent über-agent Ari Emanuel,
> government leaders such as former U.S. presidents Bill Clinton and George
> W. Bush, and philanthropist and author Chelsea Clinton.
>
>
>
> Live events were the Churchill Club’s bread and butter. Its annual VC Top
> 10 Tech Trends and the Churchills awards programs were coveted tickets, as
> was its long-running holiday Gadgets program, which was co-hosted by the
> renowned journalists Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher. A hallmark of the club
> was its education, professional development and networking opportunities
> that were core to the promise of the organization. Its discussions
> attracted audiences of senior executives in a variety of strategic roles,
> investors, start-up entrepreneurs, policymakers, academics, non-profit
> leaders and influential journalists—because Churchill Club curated its
> audience to get the right people in the room, the people who played
> integral roles within the ecosystem to make change happen.
>
>
>
> The club was exemplified by its logo—the bowler, also known as the derby,
> which became a symbol of class equality throughout the 19th and 20th
> centuries. The bowler leveled the visual playing field, encouraging more
> openness toward others and their ideas, which is exactly what the club
> strived to do for the past three-plus decades.
>
>
>
> “We sincerely thank our staff, volunteers, members and sponsors for their
> support over the years,” Tucker concluded.
>
>
>
> Those interested can relive some of the greatest moments at the Churchill
> Club on YouTube at www.youtube.com/churchillclub.
>
>
>
> Churchill Club, RIP.
>
>
>
> ###
> --
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> Ipg-smz at netpress.org
> http://netpress.org/mailman/listinfo/ipg-smz_netpress.org
>
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