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.