Things I learned from Larry...

1) Take everyone at their own value. Larry Miller was one of the good guys. I met him when I served on the Board of Directors of the Clark Planetarium. He was the Chairman of the Board, and I was the token scientist. (And also the token woman, in a Board of 16. Oh, and token educator, as well. I wore a lot of hats there.) But while the Board was constructed in this way, I never once felt it from him. From the very first meeting, his leadership style was distinguished by an appreciation for what each individual had to bring to the Board. Occasionally, there would be discussions about absent board members, discussing whether they should continue on the Board, because their ability to bring money to the planetarium was inadequate. But Larry never applied this metric to me, instead recognizing that my 'in-kind' contributions were as valuable as any from the business or financial community.

2) Money is just numbers on paper. I'll never forget the day I heard him say this. It was a revelation to me, and caused such a deep and abiding change in my attitude towards money that it was a dividing point in my life. There was 'before' I had this idea, and 'after' I had this idea. It's one thing to hear me (a middle-class professor of physics) say this. It's another thing entirely to hear it from a self-made multi-millionaire, with hundreds of millions of dollars in assets. This was later re-inforced by reading Making Money by Terry Pratchett---'the dream of money'. But it was Larry who helped me get over a lifelong neurosis about earning and spending and debt. Just in time for this recession. For which J thanks him endlessly, no doubt.

3) If you get 'em in the door, the money will follow. He said this all the time, over and over. Probably because it was so different than the way the Director thought about things. He meant that if you got people to come to the IMAX (a low-profit-margin item), they would also go to the snack bar and the store (high-profit-margin items), but they wouldn't come for the popcorn. So don't try to sell them popcorn. Sell them IMAX tickets, and make it easy for them to buy popcorn. Now, this might not seem to apply to my life as a physics professor. But it does. Sell them astronomy, and make it easy for them to buy math.

4) First rule of business: Make it easy for them to give you money. Yes. This has made our little planetarium the success that it is. It's not something that occurs to you at first, when you are spending all your time worrying about the product. But you have to spend as much time worrying about the delivery. Really. You do.

5) A good marketing campaign will cost you $1/head. So you'd better plan for bigger profit margins than that. This is all of a piece with learning about a hundred business principles, which he taught me in this specific context, but which mostly taught me to think about businesses as an objective series of decisions to make. Business is a game. It has rules, but even more than that, it has probabilities. The key to being successful in business is balancing your probabilities. It's like poker that way.

6) Sometimes a single phrase, from the right person, at the right time, can change a person's life.

7) Cry when you are moved to do so, and don't worry about who sees it. Even if you are a man.

8) It's really, really fun to write a check for $250,000 to support work you believe in.

9) Each of us has a responsibility to others. Everyone has something to give. And finding out what that is, and how to give it, is the best work of your life.

Rest in peace, Larry. I hope the heaven you believe in is waiting for you.