Three Good Doctors

[matthey]

Does anyone have more info about the three doctors in Florida who approached Jay Miner and Dave Morse to start a 'killer gaming computer company'?

There is this YouTube video about the history of the Amiga with some similar information:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LAzSZKJ3o0

I expect the good doctors were paid something when C= bought the company. Creditors (debt holders) would have been paid off eventually but stock holders could have lost money with the $4.25 C= buyout (we don't know the number of shares or added stock holders). The stock price was likely depressed by the collapse of the video game market and the limited number of companies that could afford to pay off the debt and continue with development and manufacturing.

[matthey]

They were dentists in Boca Radon who wanted to invest as venture capitalists.

Today in the U.S., the doctors would be the 1% rich elite taking advantage of tax loopholes to avoid taxes. Good doctors now are forced to pay their "fair share" so the other 50% doesn't have to pay taxes. Milton Friedman asked "What is America?" and told us we have a choice despite approaching the point of no return.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4L-2wQcCI8

We turned away from Jimmy's socialism creating the environment for the Amiga to be born. Sadly, I don't think the Amiga would happen today or could be reborn today as we have gone much further down the wrong road .

[matthey]

I was clarifying an Amiga historical point, what are you talking about???

I'm talking about the socio-economic and financial aspects affecting the creation, demise and potential rebirth of the Amiga technology. I thought it was interesting and relevant since without a creative and profitable environment the Amiga would not exist, this forum would not exist and we would not be having a conversation. No one seems to understand a good philosophical conversation anymore :/.

[matthey]

Sorry, I guess I missed the questions on social philosophy, the economy, and taxes in that post.

Would be cool to get their take on things - I wonder if they ever made anything on their USD 7 million investment.

This is no question but it is a pondering about the financial success of the doctor's investments. It doesn't really matter but it affected many people meaning it's a social philosophical quandary. The doctors were able to accumulate a substantial sum of money at that time because of the prevailing economic conditions. There certainly are tax implications involved in the ability to accumulate the wealth and how it was invested. They probably received a sizable tax deduction on their investment losses which is more limited today. Taxes are one of the best ways to discourage savings/investment and the U.S. socio-economic environment has become hostile to investors, IMO. The perpetual dead economy makes returns on investments poor and venture capitalism extremely risky, IMO. The 3 doctor's investments would be about $16 million today adjusted for inflation. I believe that would be adequate to revive the Amiga, continue development in fpga and even burn a 68k ASIC that would make it competitive enough for low priced devices with an efficient OS like the AmigaOS. I'm an investor of sorts who has been able to outperform the markets in a huge way considering they have been the worst since FDR and the Great Depression, yet I wasn't able to make as much as one of these doctors. Instead of 3 investors, we would need tens if not hundreds of investors to raise a similar amount of capital. I would not get much tax break if I lost money and the compounded interest of the multiple taxes taken have put a serious dent into the money I have been able to accumulate while I received no benefit. The sales outlook of computers/video game hardware is poor in this economic environment and tech is riskier to begin with. The result is no Amiga today and, IMO, there would have been no Amiga then given these conditions. I think it's natural to compare the past with present. History is about learning from the past and it applies in heaps to investing. Many people don't understand the basics of investing and money or we wouldn't have chosen the wrong path and maybe we would have fixed some problems rather than making them worse.

Are they the true seeders of the Amiga? That is, would Jay had not thought of starting a computer company or seek capital, had the doctors not approached him with the idea and invested?

This is a very philosophical question. Why else would it be interesting? From the questions, it sounds like someone wanted to learn from the past. A snapshot of the past is worthless without comparing it to something. All the involved issues in this case have to be understood including investing, financial, socio-economic, marketing, etc. I'm sorry if you don't understand or don't care danbeaver. Probably nobody does and that is why we have the problems that we do. Only a few people, maybe 1%, try to invest and start businesses and we are becoming more like the 1% of the 1%.

[matthey]

@matt
i really doubt anything economy related made amiga what it has been, on the contrary, i rather think that it was personal vision and dedication, and those are rarely rewarded under economical circumstances, as later history has proven. america may have contrary examples but for instance the creators of your most iconic superhero, siegel and shuster went away with nothing, bought off with a dime, afaik. i dont know i call that encouraging. in particular in current debate around amiga i feel economical factors a hindrance rather than motivation.

Jay Miner had lots of vision and dedication. I think he had half the Amiga worked out in his brain before he was even approached by the investors and was looking for an opportunity to create it. His primary dedication and drive was likely to make the best computer ever and the hope it would improve society (judging from some of his comments). The vision of the investors seemed to be to make a great game machine and make a lot of money. Their visions weren't so incompatible. Without money, none of it would have happened though. I think Jay would have worked for less than the going rate to do what he loved but he still needed enough money to buy Mitchy doggy treats. It's kind of sad that Jay did not benefit more from his creation and have more say in it's development after C= bought out Amiga. I expect the good doctors went away with much less than they invested but gained a little investing knowledge. Medhi Ali and Irving Gould probably made millions off the Amiga while they killed it with their lack of vision. With economics and investing there is always an element of luck and then there is the invisible hand, whether it be divine intervention or not. I prefer Ludwig von Mises's interpretation of Adam Smith's "invisible hand" over Milton Friedman's interpretation, in this case.

You sound like a right barrel of laughs….

My humor is kind of dry, sarcastic, intellectual humor kind of like British comedy. It comes from the frustration of watching the same ignorant mistakes being repeated over and over again without being able to do anything about them.

[matthey]

So...what IS your point?
And still, who the F*CK is Jimmy?

You don't know peanuts about the period of time around when the Amiga was created do you? Let me create a mini-timeline with the economic factors and Amiga history combined.

1976 Milton Friedman wins the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences
1977 Carteromics begins
1978 Milton Friedman gave his "What is America speech?"
1979 2nd oil crisis
1980 U.S. stagflation reached double digits, A deep but short 6 month U.S. recession was entered
1981 Reaganomics begins
1982 U.S. Unemployment peaked at 10.8%, Larry Kaplan and Jay Miner form the Hi-Toro company and found Amiga Corporation to create a video game machine
1983 Jay Miner finishes a prototype of "Lorraine", the video game market crashes
1984 Jack Traimel leaves C= and buys Atari from Time Warner, Atari contracts with Amiga to develop gfx chips and lends Amiga $500,000, C= buys Amiga and pays off Atari
1985 The C= Amiga 1000 was released

Does anyone see any errors? Iggy, have you figured out who Jimmy is yet?

1% of the worlds population own 90% of its wealth.  This should not be.

Yes, I agree but I also agree with Milton Friedman on the topic of income inequality and how governments make it worse. See his "What is America?" QnA on YouTube which deals with this important topic among many others where governments provide the wrong economics to help but end up doing more harm. The 2008-2009 recession and economic collapse was most caused by government intervention in the housing markets to help minorities and the poor buy houses. Everyone should have the right to not want, not be hungry, not be homeless, not be without a job, not be without health care, etc., right?

What's more interesting, is why on earth did Commodore pay so much money to acquire Amiga?   This doesn't make any sense to me, it sounds like the only competition was Atari who had offered $5 to buy them.   Commodore spent so much money to acquire Amiga that they almost bankrupted themselves and couldn't afford to market the A1000 properly.

Competition. C= wasn't aware of other bids for the Amiga although they probably had a pretty good idea of the current Amiga financial situation. The Amiga technology was jaw dropping back then and they wanted it. Maybe Gould didn't want Tramiel to have it also.

They should have offered $10 instead then paid Atari off and kept all of the Amiga guys on the payroll....job done!

C= was better at cost reducing products than developing them. The Amiga would have been different if most of the original Amiga Team was able to continue development and Jay Miner had more say in development. It would have cost more though so the market penetration may not have been as good. Maybe memory prices going down would have helped enough regardless. It's difficult to say although Jay Miner was right about memory prices, adding computer expansion and creating a versatile computer and not just a game machine .