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Realizing the Grand Vision · A company chapter

Consilient

Renamed to reach Wilson — BP from the top, $30M raised, and the silver bullet.

← Realizing the Grand Vision7 episodes · 32 entities · 12 source records

This topic carries part of the argument of the Consilient Manifesto — the universal call to action. ← Back to the call

Lived, then learned

The story of Consilient

Foundations of Networks · Realizing the Grand Vision

Myron Scholes, Nobel laureate, was my mentor for thirteen years…

Two men in this record each designed something clever enough to defeat them. One structured a transaction so precisely hedged that his own bonus…

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Realizing the Grand Vision

What Long-Term Capital Management proves: Nobel laureates, $4bn lost…

Long-Term Capital Management did not fail because its positions were wrong. They were right, and they paid — to somebody else. It failed at a layer…

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Realizing the Grand Vision

I designed the note and signed the clause that ended Consilient…

The company was ended by two mechanisms. He designed one and agreed to the other, both from a position of strength, both against people he trusted.…

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Realizing the Grand Vision

How a commune kid reached Michael Spence, Larry Sonsini and Kleiner…

Access in Silicon Valley is usually described as networking. What actually happened here was narrower and more interesting: a small number of people…

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Realizing the Grand Vision

Steve Jobs got the car, Tony Blair got the CEO back, and Sandra got…

In one September, every thread this record cares about ran through one account: how relationships become revenue, why computation must travel to the…

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Realizing the Grand Vision

From a $135 million term sheet to a $15 million shakedown, in one…

In late Fall 2000, Consilient held a committed $15 million preferred financing at a $135 million pre-money valuation — $150 million post, the…

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Realizing the Grand Vision

On O'Reilly's stage with Giants: Bill Joy, Eric Schmidt, Ray Ozzie…

In February 2001, Consilient paid $50,000 to be Platinum sponsor of the first O'Reilly P2P conference — buying a place on the keynote stage alongside…

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The room

Who carries Consilient

Person

Michael Spence

Vice Chairman of Consilient, and the introduction into Cisco

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Person

John Doerr

The Aspen lunch, and passions that ran to sustainability

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Organization

Impell Corporation

Nuclear safety systems — and a position outside orthodoxy

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Person

Erik Freed

CTO at Evolve, founder of InfoCanvas — which became Consilient

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Organization

Oak Hill Venture Partners

Three rounds, a silver bullet, and the end of Hare's tenure

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Concept

I signed the clause that removed me as CEO. Two years…

A clause he signed, and the reason there was nothing he could do

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Person

Ray Conley

Twenty-nine, and in over his head in the worst spring in a generation

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Organization

BP, and Lord John Browne

A $10m lead investment in crowdsourced solutions — in 2001

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Concept

Skin in the game made my investor behave worse, not…

Bass's model fixes the Spence problem. Then it creates a second one.

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Organization

Cornerstone Research

Expert testimony, and where arguments learn to survive attack

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Person

Larry Sonsini

One young entrepreneur a year. Thirty minutes.

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Person

Frank Caufield

“You're like Steve Jobs. You almost got me to invest, and I don't invest in anything.”

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Person

Myron Scholes

The closest of Hare's Nobel-laureate mentorships — thirteen years, from a contradicted lecture to an investment in Consilient

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Person

Sandra Smith

VP of Marketing & Software Alliances at Consilient; negotiated the BP safety-incident deal in London, September 2000. Her…

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Person

John Leggate

Group CIO without an IT background: North Sea driller, president of the Baku operation, hilarious, and the best guide to BP a…

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Person

Tony Hayward

The geologist in line for the top job, met privately at Browne's request — and the safety application they worked on together…

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Person

Lord John Browne

The oil CEO who was actually an environmentalist: Beyond Petroleum, the fuel-strike week, and a vision Wall Street refused to fund

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Event

The BMW Z8

Bond's car, sawn in half off Baku in the film; first seen near Trafalgar Square; lost at Sunnyvale BMW to the one buyer the story…

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All 32 in Explore →

In his own words

The verbatim layer beneath Consilient

Every episode above distills from these. Where a page and its source differ, the source governs.

In his own words · S-029 · 2026-08-13

The dictation sessions — Berkeley through Consilient

“[Raw voice dictation, transcribed as spoken, retained unedited for provenance. Speech disfluencies, false starts and…”

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In his own words · S-023 · 2026-08-13

The bridge, the BP deal, and the silver bullet

“They were separate rounds. I passed on the $15m SG round at $150m valuation. Oak Hill offered $5m convertible note at a…”

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In his own words · S-024 · 2026-08-13

The reboot, the full ratchet, and the conflict

“My $3m round was a bridge. Ray Conley's mission was to raise a VC round at any price — Oak Hill didn't care about…”

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In his own words · S-063 · 2026-08-17

London, September 2000 — Sandra Smith, Leggate, Hayward, Browne, and the Z8

“Sandra Smith was a VP at Consilient and worked very closely with me on the BP Account. She was with me in London in…”

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In his own words · S-064 · 2026-08-17

Sandra Smith — LinkedIn profile excerpt

“VP, Marketing & Software Alliances — Consilient · Full-time — May 2000 - Oct 2001 · Berkeley, CA. The Consilient…”

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In his own words · S-065 · 2026-08-17

The dinner punchline, Mary's verdict, and Victoria Vaughn

“I forgot to add the point I was going to make about the dinner in London - Sandra steadfastly ignored my hand signals…”

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In his own words · S-067 · 2026-08-17

The Deepwater figures, checked and dictated

“I checked, and according to the records, uh, the the official cost to BP was sixty five billion dollars pretax, uh, but…”

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In his own words · S-069 · 2026-08-17

The term sheets of late 2000 — SG Cowen, the wedding circuit, and the analysts

“Can you add the context of how I had secured a committed term sheet offer of a $15m Preferred Equity Financing at a…”

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In his own words · S-073 · 2026-08-18

The SG reconciliation, the Oak Hill note's design, Zaplet, and the DC…

“My memory is that the SG termsheet was $15m at a $135m pre-money valuation and (therefore) a $150m post-money…”

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In his own words · S-119 · 2026-08-25

Gemini brief — O'Reilly P2P 2001, David Stutz, Dick Hardt, and the…

“[Gemini brief, verbatim:] The O'Reilly Peer-to-Peer Conference (February 14–16, 2001, Westin St. Francis, San…”

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Entangled

Where Consilient touches the other projections

The same nodes exist simultaneously in other projections of the one graph. Touching this hub surfaces its correlated partners — follow any of them and the graph re-collapses around it.

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