Great Partners
On October 30, 2021, a memorial service was held for my dear friend, Jean “Coco” Montagu, a very special man who literally changed my life for the better. I was unable to be present, but his wife and sons graciously agreed to share some of my written remembrances that day, which I’m now sharing here.
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I was first introduced to Coco in 1996. A year later I would find myself sitting on the back porch of Coco and Kyra’s house at Walnut Place, spending a summer afternoon drinking wine, sharing personal stories, and considering whether to join Coco on his next adventure, a company that would come to be named Genetic MicroSystems. We both connected in a very strong and personal way that afternoon, and in September 1997 we founded the company, working out of the basement at Walnut Place.
I love being able to tell people that I got to do my first startup company in a basement – even if the truth was that this particular basement was the nicest office in which I ever worked! We were surrounded by paintings and sculptures from Coco and Kyra’s various artist friends. Coco picked up fresh baked croissants every morning. We enjoyed strong coffee and had large quantities of Peets shipped in from Berkeley on a regular basis. I heard stories of Coco’s adventures hunting for diamonds in Brazil. I heard about the pranks he played on the people who annoyed him at General Scanning. We were both committed 100% to this adventure, relished every aspect of the journey, and made every effort to ensure that the time we spent at work was as enjoyable an experience as possible.
Coco once told me, and I’m paraphrasing, “one of my real talents is that I can get you 90% of the way to the right answer, really fast. I’ll absolutely have the wrong answer, mind you, but I’ll be really close really fast, so we can figure out whether the approach is worth pursuing.” One great example of this is the story of what we called the “toilet paper test”, which was a real turning point for Genetic MicroSystems.
Although we had formed the company to make imaging systems for analyzing “do-it-yourself” DNA microarrays, we also wanted to make instruments enabling biologists to make their own arrays. These were essentially microscope slides with tiny spots of DNA placed on them in regular patterns. Our dilemma was that every known approach to making a DNA microarray seemed to be covered by patents.
Coco had read all the relevant patents, and one day he had an idea. As a group of us sat around a table in the center of the basement, Coco laid out several pieces of toilet paper and opened a container of India ink. He then pulled out a paper clip, and untwisted it to form a long almost straight piece of metal with a flat end. He dipped the end into the ink, raised it up, and a small hemisphere of fluid clung to the flat bottom tip of the paper clip by surface tension. He carefully touched the droplet of ink that hung from the metal to the toilet paper, and the deep blue ink quickly transferred to the paper without the metal ever making contact. The ink then spread out in all directions, forming a perfect circle.
Coco repeated the process, and voila! Another perfect circle formed on the toilet paper. Smiles broke out around the table. We all realized Coco had just conceived and demonstrated a new way of making spots on surfaces that was not covered by any patents! At that point we knew we were in business.
There’s a particular beauty to this story that I didn’t appreciate until much later. On one visit to Coco’s house, while lounging in the living room, I noticed Coco’s collection of wire sculptures on a shelf. He must have really enjoyed the fact that this breakthrough technology, which got around the blockade of patents created by some of the greatest legal and scientific minds in the field, was invented by him twisting wires for fun, a sort of three-dimensional doodling.
It wasn’t always easy working with Coco, but what I recall most was a man with a great smile, and a twinkle in his eyes, who was strong willed, loyal, intelligent, creative and driven by the quest for knowledge. He was warm, caring and comforting. He was passionate about his work, and applied himself to the tasks at hand as hard as anyone I’ve ever known. At the same time he understood how important it was to have fun, a sense of humor, and celebrate our achievements, even the small ones. He enjoyed working at the bench, and there was no task that was beneath him. Coco had a sense of fairness that I particularly appreciated.
Looking back on it more than 20 years later I appreciate even more how fortunate I was to have shared this journey with him, and what a unique experience it was.
I will always treasure his friendship, and his memory is truly a blessing to me.