At that point I had a real 30-year narrative to sink my teeth into.

We know that the PC sector won't be good in the first quarter but consumer products are playing a more important role now and that will help boost demand for chips.

I entered at an interesting time, after the L.A. riots, when the field was in crisis. A lot of the movement was down with solidarity with other races, but the riots were a shock. The focus became interracial relations, and they wanted to know what I thought. It gave me a weird credibility in the field. A lot of us got published in academic journals right away.

I remember cutting out any article I could find about the guy. At the party, he gave me a piece of something he had done. I cried, dude.

It was just one of those nights. It was an out-of-body experience.

There is so much about hip-hop culture that is peculiar to New York, and I got to understand it from that point of view.