(2017-06-29) On Preserving Human Memory Evernote Founders Impossible Mission

On Preserving Human Memory: Evernote Founder’s Impossible Mission. Stepan Pachikov today suffers from Parkinson’s Disease.

“99 percent of every person is the memory of what he or she knows,”

We remember Shakespeare because of what he contributed to the world. That’s the goal of life, to make the world better. My philosophy is that every human being has the chance to do that

He envisions a time in the near future when humankind will be in a race with machines — and will lose. He’s not making a dystopian prediction, in fact, he sees this race as an opportunity to improve humanity. “Computers do nothing to make us smarter, better, or faster,” he observes. “The only way for human civilization to survive is to find a way to make our brains a million times more effective than they are now.”

In 1986, with the help of his friend, Soviet chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov, he started the country’s first computer club; at the time, it was the only place in Moscow where ordinary people could access computers. There was a catch, however, that Pachikov imposed on its members. They had to teach children how to use computers, too.

Pachikov’s first effort, borne of the chess club, was Paragraph, a commercial effort to allow computers to recognize handwriting for the first time.

We wanted to motivate children not to lose handwriting skills. To convince parents that handwriting is important for brain development

Apple, however, who asked Pachikov to work on developing handwriting recognition for a new, hand-held computer that would come to be known as Apple Newton.

Silicon Graphics (SGI) was working on similar technology, and they bought ParaScript, the latest incarnation of Pachikov’s company. Pachikov opposed the deal but was overruled by the board. The sale made Pachikov, by this time an American citizen, was by most measures a success. However, it left him deeply depressed

He shifted the focus of his company to the idea of helping kids understand history through a virtual time machine called Alter Ego. “We developed this on our own with a particular technology for 3D,” Pachikov says. “We were pioneers in VR (virtual reality). We developed VRML (Virtual Reality Modeling Language) so that children could use technology to travel back to ancient Rome and Greece.

Pachikov had been obsessed with the human brain, and particularly with developing software that would ensure that children go through the essential stages of brain development faster. This, he believes, would make them potentially smarter as they grew. From those questions about the brain came yet another idea: what if you could make a copy of your brain? What if he could develop a system to have your brain backed up? “

From the impossible vision of a full brain backup, Pachikov scaled back to a product that could extend human memory to make things easy to find

The result, of course, was Evernote, which Pachikov started in 2002. The company produced the first prototype in 2004

...observed Evernote’s current CEO, Chris O’Neill. “There’s a place in the workforce for something that blends function and beauty,” he said. “Phil benefitted from Stepan’s insight, added a lot of hard work, and, with the help of serendipity — Phil steered Evernote directly toward the iPhone at the time it premiered — brought it all together and provided something people want and need. That’s Phil’s legacy.”

Returning to Evernote’s roots, O’Neill credits Pachikov’s vision for giving him a roadmap for where he’ll take Evernote in the future.