From Silicon Valley to Cubs
TECH MATTERS | 1st-round pick sees business, baseball parallels
In a reversal of fortune, a hotshot prospect raised in the epicenter of Northern California's technology startup culture last week became the property of a Chicago-based company. Brett Jackson, first-round draft pick of the Chicago Cubs, aspires to be a field general of the sporting world's ultimate turnaround project.
"In baseball, like business, the game is about moving forward," said Jackson, a 20-year-old center fielder who optimized his hitting and fielding skills at the University of California, Berkeley. "Don't dwell on failure and keep your goals and aspirations in mind."
Time will tell if the hordes of bleacher bums share that enlightened philosophy the first time Jackson fails to hit the cut-off man. Ask Corey Patterson, Felix Pie or Jerome Walton how quickly one can fall from savior to goat in that position. No amount of physical tools can make up for a lack of emotional discipline.
Before Jackson could even hit balls off a tee, however, he was well aware of the major league ups and downs associated with running a high-flying technology startup. His father, Peter, has run multiple technology-based companies in the San Francisco Bay area with varying degrees of success and failure.
Most famously, in the late '90s Peter Jackson presided as CEO of Intraware, an enterprise software provider that briefly enjoyed a $3 billion market capitalization. Intraware was one of several companies that benefitted from various stock performance-enhancing substances that flourished during the technology boom. After the crash, the company's valuation declined more quickly than steroid-linked Sammy Sosa's prospects for the Hall of Fame. Still, Peter Jackson spent several more years hacking away at a profitable business model and last year sold Intraware for $27 million.
"Everyone thinks it is easy to hit and easy to run a company," said the elder Jackson, now CEO of San Francisco-based GroundWork Open Source. "But you have a lot of mental failure at both."
Peter, 51, found peace over the years coaching Brett and his two younger brothers in Little League baseball. Even when his family's paper wealth mushroomed, Jackson and his wife did not change their lifestyle and strived to keep their household at a level playing field. That discipline is apparently paying off.
Last week, Brett Jackson came to terms on a nearly $1 million signing bonus with the Cubs. Earlier this year, Peter Jackson thought he was king of the world after a successful board meeting enabled GroundWork to secure venture funding.
"I told Brett that I had a 4-for-4 day at the plate," Peter recalled. "He looked at me and said 'You can't get too high on that. Remember what it's like when you go 0-for-4.' "
Brett Jackson got his level head from his parents, but he relied on cutting-edge Silicon Valley technology to help even out his swing. In January, he began working out with a Force Plate to slow down twitchiness and body movements and bring greater leverage to his swing.
"Brett was too quick," explained Phil Wagner, a director at Sparta Performance Science, based in Menlo Park, Calif.
"He struggled in creating force more smoothly and needed to learn how to do it in a more lateral direction," Wagner said.
The Force Plate technology, originally developed as a laboratory instrument, is installed beneath the floor and can detect how athletes navigate force in their movements.
Wagner said high school, college and minor league baseball players are training with the plate and he's in conversations with "World Series MVP-type" major leaguers.
"The closer you get to becoming an elite athlete, the more the little details matter," Brett Jackson said.
Brad Spirrison is a Chicago free-lance writer.