TECH HARDWARE CEO FLIPS THE SWITCH TO CLEAN ENERGY
Los Gatos entrepreneur takes on a new project: ethanol-burning generators for home and commercial uses
LOS GATOS >> Tom Quinn knew his product was a winner. He just couldn’t find a buyer.
He figured the product — a hand-held, wireless device embedded with a gyroscope and responsive to hand motions in three dimensions — could have applications beyond a pointing gadget for presentations.
Quinn, a marketer and inventor, brought his device to several video game console manufacturers in the early 2000s. He pitched Microsoft and Sony, dominant console makers. No luck.
He flew to Japan to meet with executives at Nintendo, a company struggling behind the two market leaders. Another presentation, and finally, a breakthrough.
Quinn’s company, Gyration, provided key technology for the Nintendo Wii game controller. It became the hottest console and breakthrough gaming technology. Over 100 million Nintendo Wii have been sold since its release in 2006.
It’s just one twist in a long entrepreneurial career for Quinn, a 63-year-old Bay Area native. He’s gone from computer hardware storage manufacturing and sales in the 1970s, to an executive role at computer hardware manufacturer Novell in the 80s, and on to video game success.
Quinn has switched gears once again, launching alternative energy startup E-Fuel Corporation . The 10-year-old company makes generators powered by different types of ethanol. The company touts that bio-fuel burns cleaner than diesel, and allows users to make their own fuel.
E-Fuel has grabbed a foothold in the agricultural sector, selling to farmers and growers wanting an alternative generator and the ability to cheaply manufacture ethanol fuel with farm waste.
In January, the company introduced a new generator aimed at home use. Quinn said the product allows homeowners to go completely off-grid.
The interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Q
The entrepreneur’s spirit has been with you for a while. You’re dad did it, and the you took it up at a young age, as well.
A
When I grew up, pretty much everybody had two jobs. You worked for a bigger company, then on weekends and at nights, you did your other job.
He would come home around 4 p.m., get dinner, then he’d go to the shop and he’d fix TV sets. He’d bring me over. It started off delivering TVs to homes — back then, they were furniture-type. We’d move it around. My dad taught me how to repair TV sets.
Q
How old were you when you got started? A
Moving TV sets, I was about 8. Repairing, about 10. I got really motivated by making money and knowing how to do things.
Q
What were you studying in college?
A
I originally started with political science, and then I went off that into computer science. But I was working at companies that used floppy disk drives. I remember going to college and having to take card punching. I was like, this is ridiculous. I’m never going to use this. I have to take it — but I refused. I was getting very disturbed and angry at it because the technology was so far behind. Here I am, working on the next generation stuff, trying to tell these people that this thing — programming by punching holes in cards — is not the way to go.
That disturbed me. So I fi-
Q
What did you turn to?
A
When (Apple cofounders) Steve Jobs and (Steve) Wozniak got together, they were on floppy disk. The next thing to do was to provide a storage medium. I was already doing that at Shugart (Associates). But they were big. It was a 14 inch disk platter. Five megabytes, and it had this loud AC motor on it. Not for home use.
I was on the marketing side. It never really worked at that stage.
(At a trade show in Palo Alto), we had a crowd around the booth. I was trying to explain. All of the sudden, (the machine) breaks open. It starts going “whoosh whoosh-whoosh.” Really hard. It was spraying (oil) at people and hurting them. They were screaming and running away from this disk drive. I got on my knees. I got under the table and unplugged it. I said, “OK, We're toast.”
I went back there and all the engineers were around a table. They're all famous guys that pioneered the whole disk drive market. They go, “OK, no problem.”
It taught me a lesson. If you want something, and you want to change the world, you've got to be willing to stick it out.
They prevailed. Eventually, Xerox bought them out.
Q
You made a dramatic shift to the clean energy business. What is the Personal Energy System (PES) going to do?
A
The PES addresses three things. One is the cost of energy, which is driving poverty. Secondary is the waste of the energy. We're wasting two-thirds of our energy, and that goes into our global warming.
The last thing is security. The federal government and scientists said, if we lose the grid, 90 percent of Americans will die within the first year. Alright, that's hypothetical. And nobody really wants to follow you there because it's a big thing. But it shows you how reliant and dangerous the grid can be. That's a lesson for people that they need to know.
People should understand… we've been taking energy for granted.