Let’s Assume Taxes
In his career at the Bell System, Salomon Brothers, and his own firms, Andy Kalotay examined matters others ignored. He also developed a critical view of the public finance industry.
I graduated in 1968 with a math PhD from the University of Toronto and joined AT&T’s Bell Labs in New Jersey. I was excited about going to work there. Bell Lab scientists synced movie motion and sound in 1926, developed a computer in 1937, launched satellite communications in the 1960s, and did pioneering work on sonar, lasers, and solar cells. They won Nobel prizes for their work on electrons, transistors, and cosmic microwaves. But between the time I interviewed and the time I arrived, there was a big re-organization. The job I was promised didn’t exist and I was disappointed in my new assignment in the Picturephone group.
My job was to figure out the locations of potential Picturephone buyers so AT&T could start wiring cities. There were supposedly going to be one million Picturephones in use, but the origin of that estimate was accidental. In the early 1960s, in preparation for a press conference, AT&T’s chairman asked Bell Labs for a sales estimate. They faxed a memo estimating 600,000 Picturephones by 1980. But when the fax arrived at AT&T’s New York headquarters, the smudged six looked like an eight and the chairman decided to make it an even million. The Picturephone group embraced the number and “One Million Picturephones by 1980” became our slogan.
