Measured against these 20th century figures, the wireless communications pioneer Craig McCaw would be considered unremarkable. Measured against his peers—entrepreneurs and CEOs for the 21st century—the reclusive and beneficent Mr. McCaw is a singular creature.
While Craig McCaw's contemporaries believe in the inherent good of technology, define themselves by what they do (or, worse yet, by how much they own), and approach business as a no-holds-barred grapple with the competition, Mr. McCaw's approach is more cerebral. He speaks of the inherent risks of technology, of striking a balance between life and work, and of the morality required to do business. In a time when successful businessmen rank as celebrities and the lives of celebrities reside in the public domain, when his peers surround themselves with public relations machines and welcome adoration, Mr. McCaw eschews practically all publicity.
Though he has succeeded somewhat in preserving his anonymity, the parts of Mr. McCaw's personal history that have been revealed are the stuff of Victorian literature (or made-for-TV movies): After the McCaw clan loses its family fortune, the young Viscount McCaw (on TV, Craig, played perhaps by Jason Priestly) restores his family's riches, and ultimately uses his fortune for the betterment of the serfs in his fiefdom (on TV, to pay for his mother's liver transplant surgery). He is a communications pioneer who has amassed a fortune of billions despite being dyslexic. His story is desperately worth telling.
Acquiring a first-hand account of Mr. McCaw's narrative, however, is a decidedly frustrating experience. All roads to Craig McCaw begin at the inexorable Bob Ratliffe, Mr. McCaw's long-time media minder. Even getting Mr. Ratliffe on the phone proves difficult; getting time with Mr. McCaw invariably proves impossible. Left to one's own devices, all that one can do is wander the Seattle area-searching for insights into the enigmatic Mr. McCaw.
Highland, Washington Seeing the Boeing mansion, an official Seattle historical landmark which doubled as the boyhood home of a young Craig, affirms that Mr. McCaw's is no rags-to-riches tale. He was born Craig Oliver McCaw in 1949. His father, J. Elroy McCaw, was a pioneer in radio and television, and earned a living that kept all six McCaw's—Elroy and wife Marion and, in order, sons Bruce, Craig, John, and Keith—housed in Seattle's posh Highlands district. Servants and a private cook meant there was no fighting for food among the McCaw sons.
Despite the lavish upbringing, though, life for a young Craig McCaw still had its challenges. The first and most persistent was growing up dyslexic. "Growing up, I had trouble fitting in," said Mr. McCaw in a 1998 interview. "As a dyslexic, I don't think like other people, so I didn't fit very well in a clique."
To see Mr. McCaw at public gatherings is to witness the unfortunate effects of his dyslexia—he is shy and unassuming, visibly uncomfortable during his rare public speaking engagements. The narrative of his ideas is disjointed, his point only becomes clear when his trains of thought collide in an unpredicted conclusion. He is famously well-known for blowing the punch-lines of jokes.
To inventory Mr. McCaw's professional success, however, is to understand how his dyslexia has influenced significantly his entrepreneurial vision. Mr. McCaw credits his ability to see circumstances from unique perspectives—to see, for example, the potential of cellular communications, an insight that seems obvious now but that was uncommon in its day—to the challenges of growing up dyslexic. "Dyslexia forced me to be quite conceptual, because I'm not very good at details," he said at his 1997 induction into the Academy of Achievement. "And because I'm not good at details, I tend to be rather spatial in my thinking-oriented to things in general terms, rather than the specific. That allows you to step back and take in the big picture. I feel blessed about that."
A second and more traumatic challenge that young Craig faced was the death of his father. In 1969, home for a break during his freshman year at Stanford, Craig found his 57-year old father dead from a stroke.
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The Enigmatic Craig McCaw
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Physicist Carver Mead explains why innovation requires courage and luck.
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