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Bose founder makes big stock donation to MIT

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Re: Bose founder makes big stock donation to MIT

#71

Post by masterzora »

tt wrote: post #29

I was fortunate to be a student of Dr. Bose many years ago. No other professor gave unlimited time on exams, plus free Toscanini's ice cream to boot! Beyond those small perks, his stories working with Norbert Wiener and his inspirations have completely transformed and shaped my personality and how I solve problems. Above all, the highest integrity one would have with his/her work, has been my #1 beacon thanks to Dr.…

> I was fortunate to be a student of Dr. Bose many years ago. No other professor gave unlimited time on exams, plus free Toscanini's ice cream to boot!

Unlimited time and free food is a good thing? I went to Harvey Mudd and the only thing more terrifying than an unlimited time exam was an unlimited time exam with free food. It was a surefire indicator that you were about to lose a significant chunk of your time working on a nigh-impossible exam. I guess it's just weird to find out that this isn't universal.

Re: Bose founder makes big stock donation to MIT

#72

Post by tt »

masterzora wrote: post #71
tt wrote: post #29

I was fortunate to be a student of Dr. Bose many years ago. No other professor gave unlimited time on exams, plus free Toscanini's ice cream to boot! Beyond those small perks, his stories working with Norbert Wiener and his inspirations have completely transformed and shaped my personality and how I solve problems. Above all, the highest integrity one would have with his/her work, has been my #1 beacon thanks to Dr.…

> I was fortunate to be a student of Dr. Bose many years ago. No other professor gave unlimited time on exams, plus free Toscanini's ice cream to boot! Unlimited time and free food is a good thing? I went to Harvey Mudd and the only thing more terrifying than an unlimited time exam was an unlimited time exam with free food. It was a surefire indicator that you were about to lose a significant chunk of your time worki…

Those were great perks since no other classes I knew had them. Bose didn't offer these things so he could have impossible exams. He offered them because he was cool like that. :)

If you knew your materials, it would have taken about 1 to 1.5 hrs to finish the exam. The vast majority finished within 2 hrs (typical duration of MIT night exams). But indeed there were a few who stuck around for 4-5 hrs. At least one TA had to stick around too.

Re: Bose founder makes big stock donation to MIT

#73

Post by chernevik »

jhamburger wrote: post #42
rit wrote: post #3

This is an incorrect title; the wrong conclusion may have been drawn. Although he has given them majority shares they are nonvoting only. The terms of.the gift forbid them from selling the shares or participating in any management or governance of the company. Bose is remaining a private / independent company still run by said founder. This is essentially a gift that should pay nice stock dividends for MIT.

Can't the remaining shareholders vote to suspend dividend payments indefinitely?

Yes, but they themselves wouldn't then receive dividends. They could route cash to themselves by issuing other capital instruments, but the corporate by-laws and / or charter should protect minority equity against this. This sort of thing is why you want good lawyers up front.

The likelier problem is management controlling the board and creeping up exec comp.

There will always be a trade-off between dividend payments and re-investment, but presumably here the voting equity's interests are basically aligned with the non-voting minority.

Re: Bose founder makes big stock donation to MIT

#74

Post by rubergly »

Encosia wrote: post #39
rubergly wrote: post #35

I don't understand anything about the stock market, but giving someone a large portion of stock with the agreement that it can never be sold seems like the wrong thing to do when people need to spend more to bring us out of a recession.

Bose stock pays dividends to its shareholders. The stock doesn't need to be sold for MIT to receive (and spend) money derived from the stock.

Yes, it pays dividends, but there's still a big asset that can never be mode liquid.

Re: Bose founder makes big stock donation to MIT

#75

Post by masterzora »

tt wrote: post #72
masterzora wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I was fortunate to be a student of Dr. Bose many years ago. No other professor gave unlimited time on exams, plus free Toscanini's ice cream to boot! Unlimited time and free food is a good thing? I went to Harvey Mudd and the only thing more terrifying than an unlimited time exam was an unlimited time exam with free food. It was a surefire indicator that you were about to lose a significant chunk of your time worki…

Those were great perks since no other classes I knew had them. Bose didn't offer these things so he could have impossible exams. He offered them because he was cool like that. :) If you knew your materials, it would have taken about 1 to 1.5 hrs to finish the exam. The vast majority finished within 2 hrs (typical duration of MIT night exams). But indeed there were a few who stuck around for 4-5 hrs. At least one TA h…

Ah, that's a much different case. There's a (true) horror story about an upper division physics course at Harvey Mudd. It was an unlimited time proctored exam. The prof apparently expected the students to spend 4-5 hours, but when nobody had left by then he had to order some pizzas to feed them. If I remember the story correctly, most of the students exceeded 20 hours and, I might be making this up, but I believe a couple got into the 40-some range.

This isn't really the usual case (most of the unlimited time exams are take home exams rather than proctored), but it's still terrifying.

Re: Bose founder makes big stock donation to MIT

#76

Post by Anechoic »

tt wrote: post #72
masterzora wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I was fortunate to be a student of Dr. Bose many years ago. No other professor gave unlimited time on exams, plus free Toscanini's ice cream to boot! Unlimited time and free food is a good thing? I went to Harvey Mudd and the only thing more terrifying than an unlimited time exam was an unlimited time exam with free food. It was a surefire indicator that you were about to lose a significant chunk of your time worki…

Those were great perks since no other classes I knew had them. Bose didn't offer these things so he could have impossible exams. He offered them because he was cool like that. :) If you knew your materials, it would have taken about 1 to 1.5 hrs to finish the exam. The vast majority finished within 2 hrs (typical duration of MIT night exams). But indeed there were a few who stuck around for 4-5 hrs. At least one TA h…

>But indeed there were a few who stuck around for 4-5 hrs. At least one TA had to stick around too.

In one of our exams, there was supposedly a student who remained in the hall until 3 or 4am. It was unlimited time and s/he decided to take advantage of it. I took the class pass/fail (I was an Mech E so I didn't have a great background in the advanced EE stuff underpinning some of the concepts) so I always left sooner than I really should have since I didn't sweat the small stuff.

Re: Bose founder makes big stock donation to MIT

#77

Post by Anechoic »

guelo wrote: post #67

What a wasteful donation. MIT has an over $8 billion endowment, and it teaches the most privileged technical students in the world. If MIT was at least trying to expand to teach more students, but of course it can't since it needs to maintain it's high selectivity in order to preserve its reputation. I can think of a thousand better donations than wasting it on rich ivy schools.

FTR, MIT isn't an Ivy.

Dr. Bose has always felt that MIT was good to him and so he gives back. It is what it is.

BTW, Bose does have a Corporate Contributions Committee that people can solicit for donations if they feel they have a worth cause: Contributions@bose.com It didn't work for me (EAW generously stepped in) but others may have better luck.

Re: Bose founder makes big stock donation to MIT

#78

Post by eneveu »

klbarry wrote: post #50
horacio wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amar Bose was a good professor, and in making this donation to his alma mater, he continues to carry on the tradition of MIT graduates doing good things long after they've made a name for themselves. His work today in no way lessens the impact of an audiophile's criticism of his company's products. Not only are they overpriced in consideration of value delivered, they are in many respects poor implements for faithful…

Which companies are better than Bose?

I've recently researched headphones, and the most interesting resource was Head Fi ( http://www.head-fi.org/forum/ ). More specifically, these portable headphone reviews: http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/433318/shootout-78-porta... .

I also discovered Headfonia ( http://www.headfonia.com/ ), a nice blog.

After reading http://www.headfonia.com/closed-cans-shootout-m-50-esw-9-t50... and many discussions on Head-Fi, I bought a Sennheiser HD-25-1, and I'm really happy with it ;)

This does not directly answer your question, but I think it may still be of interest.

Re: Bose founder makes big stock donation to MIT

#79

Post by Anechoic »

klbarry wrote: post #50
horacio wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amar Bose was a good professor, and in making this donation to his alma mater, he continues to carry on the tradition of MIT graduates doing good things long after they've made a name for themselves. His work today in no way lessens the impact of an audiophile's criticism of his company's products. Not only are they overpriced in consideration of value delivered, they are in many respects poor implements for faithful…

Which companies are better than Bose?

The other responses are talking about headphones, but with regard to loudspeakers (and given that this is Hacker News) you can always pick out your own components and build your own loudspeakers. That will allow you to tailor the speakers to your specific sound quality and aesthetic requirements.

It helps to have access to decently-equipped wood shop, but if you don't you can try asking a local custom-cabinet maker if they will cut and assemble the box for you. IME they are receptive to these types of projects since they can often use scrap from their other projects which allows them to make some money from material that would typically be wasted.

Some resources:

http://www.madisound.com/

http://www.parts-express.com/ (full disclosure: I am a PE reseller)

http://www.diyaudio.com/

http://www.amazon.com/Loudspeaker-Design-Cookbook-Vance-Dick...

http://www.speakerworkshop.com/

Re: Bose founder makes big stock donation to MIT

#80

Post by Anechoic »

ethereon wrote: post #64
Anechoic wrote: post #10

Folks like to rag on Bose products (and from a pure sound quality standpoint they are overpriced IMO) but Amar Bose was the best professor I had and his enthusiasm for engineering and acoustics showed in all of his lectures. He's been good to MIT over the years (MIT students, faculty and affiliates get substantial discount) and this is another example of him giving back. I hope this encourages MIT to resurrect some o…

I wouldn't say acoustics is dead at MIT. I participated in some very interesting ocean acoustics research in the last few years which has been published in Science a couple of times. For anyone interested in reading about underwater ocean acoustics: [1] http://www.sciencemag.org/content/323/5922/1734.full?ijkey=t... [2] http://www.sciencemag.org/content/311/5761/660.full?ijkey=bc...

Course 13?
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