Dr. Brilliant Vs. the Devil of Ambition

Brilliant has found a new way to be ambitious, a healthy way, a way to act ambitiously without letting it sink into his sense of identity. Ambition, after all, is a basically healthy state. The word "ambition" shares a root with the word "ambient" -- ambire, meaning "to move around freely." That word originated in the 14th century, when politicians would travel broadly to get votes and support. Taken literally, and used correctly, to have ambition is to create your life's journey. Ambition is not a single-minded focus, a career obsession, or rampant self-promotion at the expense of others. The true arc of ambition, as Brilliant has lived it, is a healthy one.

It shows. There are people in Silicon Valley who are more successful than Larry Brilliant. And there are people in Silicon Valley who are richer than he is. But there are few who have had more impact on the world at large than he has.

In truth, Brilliant has been ambitious for one thing only: his soul. How many of us would consider the soul a sufficient driver for success? The soul, after all, can be an annoyance when you're trying to get ahead. But things are changing. The soul may be the next drilling platform to plumb the heart of the leader. As the new economy continues, each of us is going to be drilled down to our depths. And the only mark of difference between us will be in our deep identity, our soul. Everything else will be commodified.

That is why Brilliant has devoted his life to understanding that one simple, puzzling mantra: "Live your life without ambition. But live as those who are ambitious." Do that, and you discover the discipline of living an authentic life -- and of living hard, as if each day counts. That said, there is no mistaking that Brilliant is, well, weird. He is maybe three statistical variations from the norm, which he also fully accepts.

Where Did Goethe Find Faust?

"I have, alas, studied philosophy/Jurisprudence and medicine, too,/And, worst of all, theology/With keen endeavor, through and through -- /And here I am, for all my lore,/The wretched fool I was before./Called Master of Arts, and Doctor to boot ..."

So where does this tale of abnormal, sane, hyperactive ambition begin? With a kid growing up Jewish in Detroit, being raised on Dr. Spock -- and switching to medical school when he learns that his father is dying of cancer. He has been studying philosophy and has been thinking, like almost everyone in his generation, that his mission is to change the world. His father's death convinces him not to change the world but to save it.

Then, as the 26-year-old Larry Brilliant is finishing his surgical internship at Presbyterian Hospital in San Francisco in 1970, he learns that the first person he must save is himself: He is diagnosed with cancer of the parathyroid gland. The surgery he is headed for was his own. The salvation he must seek begins with his recovery.

"I took time off to heal," Brilliant recalls. "That summer, a group of Indians took over Alcatraz. A woman named Tina Trudell, whose husband was John Trudell, the rap poet, wanted to have her baby on Alcatraz -- the first Indian baby to be born on Indian-freed land in 200 years. She couldn't get a doctor to come out and deliver the baby. I agreed to go out there. I wound up living on Alcatraz for a couple of weeks, the only white person there."

The press started calling, and, without trying, he found himself being a spokesman for Native American rights. One time, the phone rang and it was Warner Brothers. The studio was making Medicine Ball Caravan, a sequel to the hit Woodstock Nation. How would he like to play a doctor in a film about a tribe of hippies who follow the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Jethro Tull, and Joni Mitchell?

"Warner Brothers had agreed to give massive infusions of photos of dead presidents to free clinics in America, so Larry and his wife, Girija, signed on," says Wavy Gravy, 64, another mythical figure of the 1960s who had just come back from serving as the "chief of please" at Woodstock. In Caravan, he was asked to serve a similar role, handling life support and security. "When we did anything cool," Wavy recalls, "we had to do it once more 'for Francois,' the film's French director."

The final scenes were shot in Canterbury, England with Pink Floyd performing. The night before the shoot, Wavy ran through the quiet village banging on doors and shouting, "The Americans are coming! The Americans are coming!"

By the time that production wrapped, Warner Brothers had accumulated a fortune in rupees: The cast got paid in Indian Airlines tickets. When you're a charter member of Woodstock Nation, what do you do with airline tickets? Several members of the group cashed them in and bought a bus.