BRILLIANT PEOPLE ARE JUS T ANOTHER JOE, AND THAT’S A WEIRD FEELING F OR THEM.” 62 South Bay Accent CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: COURTESY OF HOWARD SCOTT WARSHAW; CHERYL SHEPARD; BLAKE FARRINGTON; PREVIOUS SPREAD: ISTOCK “SILICON VALLEY IS THE PLA CE WHERE They argue that it requires diligence and focus. You’ve got to build personal relationships, practice gratitude, savor the present and take good care of yourself. Ten separate “happiness habits” make the list, in fact, as we’ll soon explore in detail. Many of us, regardless of income level, need help in those areas. Flip over the bright yellow smiley-face that is alleged to be Silicon Valley’s signature emoticon, they add, and cracks appear. Nobody knows that better than self-titled “Silicon Valley’s Therapist,” Howard Scott Warshaw. In his Los Altos practice as a licensed marriage and family therapist, Warshaw sees a steady stream of unhappy techies and their families; they’re weary from the high-pressure demands of work and school, and they are living unbalanced lives. Yet despite hearing a lot of sadness from his clients, Warshaw points his clients in the direction of balance and resilience, and he speaks from painful personal experience. “I had a failure so big, Hollywood actually made a movie about it!” Warshaw jokes. If his name sounds familiar, it’s because he suffered one of the valley’s most spectacular public fails, which understandably led to some serious unhappiness in his life three decades ago. Warshaw reached the pinnacle of success after programming one of Atari’s best selling video games ever, “Yar’s Revenge.” In 1982, he programmed the now infamous “E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial.” Initially, “E.T.” was hailed one of that year’s top holiday sellers, but as Christmas cheer gave way to cold winter sales numbers, reality set in. Large numbers of players returned the game, complaining it was too hard to play. An estimated 3.5 million cartridges went unsold. Atari, once at the top of the video game universe, closed in 1983, and the entire video game industry imploded simultaneously. Warshaw and the “E.T.” video game were linked to the massive failure. Warshaw’s folly later became the stuff of urban legend, as rumors grew that millions of copies of “E.T.” were buried in a municipal dump in the New Mexico desert. Welcome to show biz: an elaborate plan to dig up the “E.T.” cartridges was the focus of the 2014 documentary, “Atari: Game Over,” in which Warshaw is prominently featured. It lifts a black cloud of half-truths surrounding the game that for years all but obscured relevant facts. Most personally painful to Warshaw was “E.T”s legendary status as the “worst game ever.” “I’m convinced that our big houses and our incredibly fancier cars and the money that we spend on things and toys are not making us happy.” —SARA HART “So when your kids see you spend time with friends, and that makes you happy, they will learn that social ties and friendships and time with your family is a good ticket to happiness.” —CHRISTINE CARTER “If you take any one part of your life and make that the entirety of your life, by definition that’s not balanced.” —HOWARD SCOTT WARSHAW THE HAPPIN ESS EXPERTS
South Bay Accent - Apr/May 2016
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