The Desire to Achieve Runs Deep Among Members of Estrin Family : Three Ph.D.s, an MD and Founder of Computer Company
Somewhere in a family photo album, they recall, there is a picture of them on a cruise ship, sailing along a magnificent, mountainous coast in northern Europe. And there on the deck, while the rest of the family takes in the panorama of rugged shore and ocean, one of the three children sits engrossed in a math book, its numbers, symbols and formulas crowding out the charms of dramatic scenery.
Although this tale may have been embellished for effect, it apparently says a thing or two about the Estrin family. In a decade obsessed with achievement, with making it, the Estrins have set their own rules and goals for what is valuable and worthwhile.
Married 44 Years
There are five of them: Gerald and Thelma Estrin, married 44 years, and daughters Judith, Deborah and Margo.
Gerald, 64, is chairman of the computer science department at UCLA and his resume includes heading up the team that built Israel’s first computer and work with a pioneering computer team at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J.
Thelma, 61, is director of the department of engineering and science at UCLA Extension and assistant dean for Continuing Education at UCLA’s School of Engineering and Applied Science.
Judith, 31, is a founder and executive vice president of Bridge Communications, a Silicon Valley firm she helped start four years ago to produce computer network products. One day last week stock in her company was trading at $17 a share. She owns 300,000 shares with a total value of $5.1 million.
Deborah, 26, recently received her doctorate in computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is now an assistant professor in computer science at USC.
Margo, 32, is the one who broke the pattern. She is a graduate of the USC School of Medicine and is now an internist in private practice in Northern California.
On a recent morning four of them (Margo was absent) gathered at the Estrin home in Westwood to talk about their lives and about what makes them the unusual family that they are.
Gamut of Reactions
The perceptions of others, they agreed, runs the gamut from curiosity to suspicions of unbridled workaholism and ambition.
“They say they want to know how we did it,” said Gerald, acknowledging that others seem to think “we’re strange.” He added, “In some sense (our family) represents a lot of peoples’ wishes for themselves and their children . . . they say we’re lucky; we know we’re lucky.”
While the Estrins don’t deny being subject to typical family tensions, they insisted that there was and is no additional load of stress because of their desire to achieve.
For instance, neither daughter remembered her childhood as one in which there was overt pressure from the parents.
Her parents’ obvious dedication to the work ethic set an example, Judith said. “As opposed to active pushing, which a lot of people rebel against, there was always clearly the sense that there would be disappointment from our parents if we didn’t do well and the desire to have approval from our parents,” she said. “Today, all three of us, as grown up as we think we are, have that sense of wanting approval and not wanting to disappoint.”
Deborah expanded on the theme: “And it’s always been in terms of ‘This is the way to have a fulfilled life’ . . . it’s always in those terms of ‘We found fulfillment by working so hard and that’s how you will find fulfillment also. It’s not for us, it’s for you.’ ”
Her comment was followed by laughter from the others responding to the tinge of satire in her voice.
And Thelma denied that she and her husband ran an elaborately structured household filled with the sounds of exhortation.
“We’re not very pedantic in the sense we told them what to do,” she commented. “Debbie says I like to have people read my mind rather than telling them what to do. So we’re not very big on speeches and giving them directions, except maybe marching orders.”
Deborah conceded that was generally true. “When I think about elementary school, junior high school, even high school, I remember very little pressure about grades and things like that,” she said. “I find that very surprising . . . I can remember coming home with an A- and discussing why it wasn’t an A, but it wasn’t ‘Why didn’t you do this?’ it was more, ‘Let’s discuss what happened here so we can do better.’ ”
Both daughters also remembered that their father was willing to spend hours helping with their homework but he would “never, ever” give them an answer to a problem.
Even though the turbulence of the 1960s and 1970s did not leave them totally unaffected, the Estrins said that they came through that era of rebellion and the disintegration of families largely unscathed.
Aware of Consequences
Gerald remembered worrying about the threats of drugs and other dangers that he saw affecting other families. But he believes that his children were too aware of the consequences to risk their dreams for more dubious and quicker gratification.
“I think achievers in some sense want to have more control,” he said. “They don’t want to lose control and that goes over into alcohol and drugs.”
Deborah elaborated. “You hear of some families where there’s a disagreement and they never talk to one another again or the kid leaves home and the ties are severed,” she said. “But here, if you don’t like what somebody’s doing, you may talk about it forever, but the end result is that it isn’t going to sever your relationship.”
‘The Black Sheep’
Judith, who called herself the “black sheep” because she is the only child without a doctorate, said her upbringing didn’t push her into always taking the safest course. She helped found her company, she said, partly because “I wanted to grow faster than I think most companies would let me grow. I knew I could do something but at the same time a combination of being very young, being a woman, not having paid my dues for 10 or 15 years, told me I couldn’t walk in and necessarily get the level of challenge and responsibility that I would like. And it wasn’t just engineering, it was the breadth of the business aspects (that motivated me). My interest is in how the technology applies to the marketplace as opposed to technology for technology’s sake.”
Not surprisingly, the Estrins are staunch supporters of feminism, especially regarding women in the technical professions.
Thelma Estrin recalls that in 1952, when she received her doctorate in electrical engineering, there were only two such degrees earned by women in the United States.
Thirty years ago, Thelma Estrin recalled in a speech she made in 1984, she had a tough time finding a job in her field “because my commitment to engineering research was viewed as transitory and not taken seriously.”
Partly because of that distrust of women, Estrin said her early career focused on the then non-traditional field for engineers of electrical activity in the brain. Her first job was with the Neurological Institute in New York City, a four-hour round-trip commute from her home in Princeton, N.J., where her husband was working in a pioneering computer development program at the Institute for Advanced Study. Later at UCLA, she worked at the Brain Research Institute, where she helped design the institute’s computer laboratory.
Of her daughters, Deborah seems to be the most influenced by her mother’s views. In her life, Deborah said, she has chosen paths that seemed more non-traditional for women if she was wavering between two options.
On the other hand, Judith claimed she has never considered her career in terms of male female issues. “Part of my success in being able to (accomplish) is that I never questioned being able to do something because it was a ‘man’s’ profession,” she said.
If there is a source of argument among the Estrins, it is about the role of technology in society.
Deborah is a member of Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility and opposes “escalations of the arms race by using more high-tech weaponry.” She plans to channel her career into areas that have more application to civilian and commercial uses than military, she explained.
Her father supported her stand, although he said he has “tremendous respect” for some of the research arms of the Department of Defense. “I tend to lean much more toward where Deborah is sitting because I think we’re in danger of going askew with things like SDI (the Strategic Defense Initiative or ‘Star Wars’) and it’s something you have to take a stand on.”
However, Thelma Estrin disagreed. “I feel the whole history of computer development in this country has been via the Department of Defense and that’s the way our country works,” she said. “. . . I’m very pro technology. I think that everything has its up-sides and its down-sides. I think that technology is really the key to people achieving their potentials and to equalizing society. I think the forces at work will even things out.”
On the matter of family, though, no one demured when Thelma Estrin said: “I think if I had kids who went in completely different ways (than I wanted), I think initially, maybe, I’d be disappointed or I’d try to push them or something. But I believe that I would learn to respect what they had. I just believe that underneath, all people have something to give and to contribute and I try to take people for what they are.”
