Remembering Cleve Moler... the man behind MATLAB

It was past bedtime. My wife and I had barely finished our conversation when the rain finally came. It wasn't the first shower of the summer. More like the fifth shower, over the last two really hot months, in Bangalore. But for the first time this summer, the rain had finally turned benevolent. Not raging or tumultuous, not sparse or farcical, but just the right amount of rain, the city needed. We both sat up, drew the curtains open, and paused to look outside. The haze from the rain made a halo around the streetlights of our apartment, around the tower demarcation lights, and over the oddly hoisted, glowing from within the dial, clock, above the swimming pool. The mist from the rain was sprayed into our bedroom by the wind. The city, and certainly, all the people in it, would have thanked God for this blessing from the skies.

In a state of mindless polling, I opened my Outlook, anticipating an e-mail from a customer. Instead, I found an email from our CEO, Jack Little, with nothing but Cleve Moler's name in the subject line. The moment I saw the subject, I feared the worst news. I took a deep breath and opened it. To my dismay, it was an announcement of Cleve's passing away. May his soul rest in peace.

It's been eight years since I joined MathWorks, the company behind MATLAB. For those people who haven't had anything to do with STEM, this software would have still touched your life in ways you can't imagine. If you have ever driven a car, or taken a cab, if you have ever taken a flight, or used a PC or a smartphone, if you have used a home appliance, or undergone a medical scan, if you have ever traded in the financial market, or been among the very few who have travelled into space, you would have used a tool that was designed using MATLAB. 

Cleve Moler built the first version of this software.

And since the last 42+ years, the world has benefitted from his work in innumerable ways.

I am writing this small post for Cleve, as a tribute to this lovely, brilliant, kind and simple gentleman. I am not claiming to have known him in person. There would be thousands of people who would know Cleve much better than I do. My memory of him is from a very simple incident, but not very long ago.

We were at our Annual Sales Kick-Off event a couple of years ago. It was the first day of the event. As is standard, Jack was delivering the Quarterly update of MathWorks' performance. I had taken a front row seat. No, I wasn't getting an award, nor was I gonna be up on the stage to deliver a talk. It just happened that the front row seats were vacant. Besides, the event organizers are always happy if the front row seats are occupied. Somewhere in between Jack's talk, I noticed that Cleve had also settled in, right behind me. Since I was seated at the very end of one of the columns in the middle, Cleve, in his motorized wheelchair, was seated in the alleyway right behind me. I looked back and smiled at him. I felt nothing but immense gratitude for the man who built MATLAB. Thanks to him, we were all there. Right when Jack's talk got over, the audience got up to leave the hall for a break. I too was about to get up, when I felt a very light nudge on my chair. I turned around and saw it was Cleve's wheelchair. He had realized that his electric wheelchair had slightly gotten out of his control. He feared that he would have knocked me hard. It was barely anything at all. Despite assuring him right away that it was nothing, he got profusely apologetic. He looked at me, and he kept saying sorry. In my gratitude and admiration for him, I kept telling him that it was all right. He didn't have to apologize and  I barely felt a thing. Yet, Cleve seemed inconsolable. He seemed to have lost some confidence in operating his wheelchair because of that miscontrol. His hands trembled when he tried to steer his wheelchair away. That very moment, Cleve's caregiver took control and lovingly yet carefully steered Cleve away. Even on his way out of the hall, Cleve had that innocent, apologetic look, as if something grave and untoward had happened. I hope my assurances eventually had an effect.

I will always remember that short encounter with Cleve. He had a brilliant mind, without a doubt, but he was a simple, kind and sensitive person. I cannot imagine doing anything to even one-tenth of what he did, or having an impact like he had with his work. But I hope I will always remember to be kind and sensitive to others around me, like how Cleve was with me the other day. Today, Cleve is no more with us in person, but he will be remembered through all of us at the MathWorks, and indirectly, by more than hundred-thousand customers and by more than five million users of MATLAB who have accelerated the pace of Engineering and Science, over the last 42 years. 

As Jack put it in his email, Cleve has been a force of great goodness in the world, and we will miss him.

What's up!!!

This is not going to be blogpost reminiscing all that you missed, but rather a mere contemplation of how life in general has evolved from over seven years ago. By now, I have survived, a second re-election of the ruling party, a pandemic that cornered everyone to their homes, literally, a few foreign trips, an advancement in AI that is rendering people jobless, a third-but-cautious re-election of the ruling party, and finally, after much struggles and challenges, a lovely person to come home to. Life has been good to me in the last seven years, which my fellow readers (if any) have missed.

As I sit before my laptop, trying to wade and comb through any significant thoughts, I must also tell you that in the last 8 years, Liverpool FC have won the Champions League once and the Premier League twice. It is incredible to be a Liverpool fan at this point of time. As I write this blog, my thoughts are also drawn to the beautiful parade that LFC players undertook, and the terrible incident caused by a driver who rammed into 60+ supporters in his car. It was horrific that the parade, which was meant for a celebration ending in a horrible way.

I have a beautiful home now. From my balcony I can see deep into the Bangalore skyline. Here's a picture of it.

Those little lights near the horizon is the Bengaluru skyline, which has remained my home for over 13 years now. <May the fourth 2026> Resuming this blog post after a year, I have to add that Liverpool FC have lost a beloved player in Diogo Jota, to a brutal road accident, and the last year has been a tough year for us. Yeah, Mo Salah leaving Liverpool is truly the end of an Era at Liverpool, an era, every Liverpool fan is so proud of>

Such a long time in a single city, that I have not contemplated moving to any other. After all., all the major tech advancements in India happen in this hub. That and of course, the Bengaluru weather to thank God for this comfortable life. Funnily enough, I came across an Instagram post with a picture of Warren Buffet, and a quote, that surely didn't come from him, about how you should be grateful in life despite any uncertainties that tumble your way. I came across something similar from a character called Stratt in the book, Project Hail Mary, who before seeing off her favorite person, Dr. Ryland Grace, had cited the brutal nature of humanity and its struggle for food. 

What else is up?

I have been reading a lot of books. It's really me going back to the phase of my life where I am rekindled my love for good literature. After the phase in the early to mid 2010s, and of course while I was in school. Just over the last couple of weeks, I have finished reading two books; Project Hail Mary, and Days at the Morisaki Bookshop.

Days at the Morisaki Bookshop, is the story of a young girl in Japan, Takako, who started experiencing her adult life. The book starts with a scene of Takako, getting dumped by her boyfriend who she knew from work. Unable to move on she quits her job and just refuses to step out into the world. Concerned by her reluctance to move on from reclusion, her mom makes her decide between one of the two options: arranged marriage or moving on to help her Uncle Satoru's at their used bookstore. Her uncle, is delighted to have 'Takako' help him with managing their used book store focused on modern writers of Japan. While Takako, realizes that without a job, it will be difficult to continue at her current arrangement, she decides, albeit reluctantly, that she will accept her uncle's offer, in exchange for boarding and salary. Not many things change at first, but the human mind is also funny. Even if it has seen some serious trauma, it does get bored of. Boredom gets Takako up on her feet. Slowly and steadily, she develops a taste for literature, steps out to explore a new suburb, and makes new friends. The book reads as Takako's own narration of this period of her life.

If you want to know about Project Hail Mary, there is a nice movie that came out, which people have enjoyed at the Imax theatre. I haven't watched the movie because I wanted to read the book. I'll leave that story for you to discover.

Among the other books I finished, there was a re-read of 1984 by George Orwell, and a book titled Dove, based upon the life of a teenage sailor, who takes his boat, called Dove, around the world over a period of five years. He starts off from California, heading on to Hawaii, to New Zealand, Australia, Madagascar, South Africa, the Caribbean islands, and finally back to California. 

Is that all?

Nope. I have now journaled my thoughts continuously for more than a year and half now. The intention is to have a log of my undiluted thoughts, available to me and family, as a memoir. Why did I prefer a journal over a blog? It's my love for calligraphy with a fountain pen and a plain old blank pages of a diary, where my thoughts could descend without any justification or judgement.

As Miranda Priestly put it,"That's all". For now, at least.