Early career
Myhrvold left Cambridge to co-found a computer startup in Oakland, California. The company, Dynamical Systems Research Inc., sought to produce Mondrian, a clone of IBM's TopView multitasking environment for DOS. Myhrvold served as Dynamical Systems Research's president.[1] Microsoft purchased Dynamical Systems Research in 1986 for $1.5M in stock.[7] Myhrvold worked at Microsoft for 13 years in a variety of executive positions, culminating in his appointment as the company's first chief technology officer in 1996.[8] At Microsoft he founded Microsoft Research in 1991.[9]
Intellectual Ventures
After Microsoft, in 2000 Myhrvold co-founded Intellectual Ventures,[10] a patent portfolio developer and broker in the areas of technology and energy, which has acquired over 30,000 patents.[11] Intellectual Ventures takes part in the market for inventions and patents, buying patents from companies and inventors under the assumption the patents will be more valuable in the future. Intellectual Ventures has also been granted thousands of patents on inventions conceived on-site by its own teams, which include a number of individuals on the list of prolific inventors. Myhrvold is named as an inventor on more than 900 U.S. patents.[12]
Startup companies spun out of Intellectual Ventures, including TerraPower, Kymeta, Echodyne, Modern Hydrogen, Lumotive, Evolv Technology, and Pivotal Commware, have developed commercial products from Intellectual Ventures' inventions. Through its Global Good unit, which Myhrvold founded in collaboration with Bill Gates, Intellectual Ventures has also invented and produced commercial products, such as improved vaccine coolers and milking cans, aimed at low-income markets in Africa and Asia.[13]
Nuclear power
Myhrvold is vice chairman of TerraPower, a spin-out of Intellectual Ventures that is developing a new kind of nuclear reactor, known as a traveling-wave reactor, that is designed to be safer, cheaper, and cleaner than current nuclear power plants. In 2020, the company launched a joint venture with GE Vernova Hitachi Nuclear Energy to build and operate a prototype reactor of this kind that combines a sodium-cooled fast reactor with a molten salt energy storage system.[20] In 2024, TerraPower broke ground at a site in Wyoming where it intends to build its first reactor.[21]
Science
In addition to his business activities, Myhrvold is a working scientist who has published original, peer-reviewed research in the fields of paleobiology,[22] climate science,[23] and astronomy.[24] A prize-winning nature and wildlife photographer, he has published highly detailed color images of snowflakes[25] and a book of landscape photography titled Natural Wonders: Marvels of Our World.[26] He has also been involved with paleontological research on expeditions with the Museum of the Rockies.[27] His work has appeared in scientific journals including Science,[28]
Cooking
While working as chief technology officer at Microsoft, Myhrvold took a leave to earn a culinary diploma from École de Cuisine La Varenne in France.[17] Myhrvold's early culinary training was as an observer and unpaid apprentice at Rover's, one of Seattle's leading restaurants, with Chef Thierry Rautureau.[54] Myhrvold is the principal author of a culinary text entitled Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking,[55] released in March 2011, on the application of scientific research principles and new techniques and technology to cooking.[56] That book, which earned a James Beard Foundation Award for "cookbook of the year" in 2012, was followed by the books Modernist Cuisine at Home,[57] The Photography of Modernist Cuisine,[58]
Advocacy
In interviews with CNN, SuperFreakonomics author Stephen Dubner, and Scientific American, Myhrvold has discussed ways to reverse some of the effects of global warming/climate change by using geoengineering.[61] Myhrvold and other inventors working with Intellectual Ventures have proposed several approaches, including one that would use hoses, suspended from helium balloons 25 km above the Earth at high latitudes, to emit sulfur dioxide, which is known to scatter light.[62][63][64]
Affiliations and awards
Myhrvold received the James Beard Foundation Award for cookbook of the year in 2012[65] and an honorary degree from The Culinary Institute of America in 2013[66] for his book Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking. His book Modernist Bread received a James Beard Foundation book award in 2018.[67] In 2010, Myhrvold was named by Foreign Policy magazine to its list of top 100 global thinkers.[68] He was selected as the keynote speaker for the UCLA College commencement ceremonies on Friday, June 12, 2015[69] and received the Earth, Planetary and Space Sciences Luminary Award from the UCLA Division of Physical Sciences in 2021.[70]
