Was He Really?
As of the past week there has been a certain buzz around the CAD community about a top executive of a 3D CAD software being a member of the now famous MIT blackjack team that took millions of dollars from the Las Vegas casinos. The new "21" movie that opens today is about this group of students and seems to have set off the CAD community on a wild goose chase trying to figure out if some of the stories that are floating around are actually true or not. I was first tipped off to this "rumor" last week when I was watching a video that Gabi Jack had posted of Vic Leventhal’s presentation at the Tri-Valley SolidWorks User Group and Vic had mentioned it. I actually had to start the video over from the beginning to make sure that I had heard him right the first time.
Well, by now most of you probably know that I am talking about Jon Hirschtick, the co-founder of SolidWorks. Now as a disclaimer I want to state that I have not heard this directly from Jon’s mouth but an article that I read today at EnterpriseNews.com more or less states this as the truth in an interview that Bob Tremblay did with Jon. Maybe I will get a personal confirmation of this through this post but we will have to see. The article I read titled "Former MIT blackjack team member talks about breaking the bank" was a VERY interesting read and very insightful to all the rumors that have been flying around. In the article it mentions that Jon to this day is not allowed in around a dozen Las Vegas casino’s and that he doesn’t use his real name or bet a lot of money in the others in order to prevent a red flag from being raised. Now I want to know if some of the names used in the video that previewed SolidWorks 2009 at the Wednesday morning general session at SolidWorks World are some of Jon’s alias’s at the casino or could be in the future. Oops, I hope I didn’t just blow that for him.
I had the opportunity this past year at SolidWorks World to sit down and have a one on one interview with Jon and found him to be an extremely intelligent, down to earth and all around great guy. Jon is one of those people that you love to surround yourself with because he has a great personality and is simply fun to be around. You can check out my interview with him here and here.
I will tell you one thing, having this tie to the movie definitely makes me want to see it and see what kind of events probably in a round about way led to the beginning and funding of the SolidWorks software that now know.
3 Responses to “Was He Really?”
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Here is the personal confirmation you asked for as a result of your post!
I did in fact play on the MIT Blackjack Team.
The movie is a lot of fun, but please know there is a ton of pure fiction on top of some realistic but fictional names/characters.
I learned from blackjack that sometimes you can win even when conventional wisdom says you cannot. This is the kind of lesson that helped carry me through the tough early days of SolidWorks where so many people thought it would never succeed.
The MIT Blackjack Team was exciting, but SolidWorks has been much more satisfying in every dimension.
How does one follow that comment with anything else at all? I was going to saying something halfway meaning but totally forgot! Awesome (literally). BTW, nice pun!
Oh, now I remember, I was at the T-VSWUGN meeting and I also confirm what Vic said…but that comment is now pointless given that you got the answer directly from Jon.
I know what you mean. I just about fell out of my chair when I got his response, how awesome. As meaningless as it seems thanks for the personal confirmation that you were going to give.