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Captain’s Log: William Shatner Talks About Leonard Nimoy’s Funeral and the Price of Fame

This story is being featured as part of our "Yahoo Best of 2015" series. It was originally published on June 22, 2015..

William Shatner, man. He was Captain Kirk on the original “Star Trek”—an acting gig on a three-season show that nobody at the time thought would amount to anything.

Since then the man has become a legend. He’s 84 years old and still insanely busy. In fact, this week the former Starfleet Commander is about to embark on a 2400-mile trek from Chicago to Los Angeles on a three-wheeled motorcycle he designed himself!

And yet he found the time to sit down with me for a Yahoo Tech Mix interview. He had a cold, and he was jetlagged—fresh off a flight from Dubai—but even under the weather, the man is fascinating.

You’ve probably already read about the bombshell he dropped in his interview—the revelation of the $30 billion Kickstarter campaign he wants to launch, to build a water pipeline from Seattle to California. (You can read about that here.)

Here’s the rest of the interview—in which he talks about:

The myth of reinvention.

The annoyance of being bothered by fans in public.

His Web interview show (“William Shatner’s Brown Bag Wine Tasting”).

The hot-rod, three-wheeled motorcycle that he co-designed after a nasty riding accident.

His horseback-riding career (he actually still wins riding competitions—in his 80s).

His take on phone-camera and Vine culture. 

His four-album singing career.

The upcoming tour of his one-man show, “Shatner’s World.”

Internet hate culture. 

A long slow Trek to fame

There were some tough times right after the original Star Trek series was canceled; for awhile, Shatner, unable to get work, lived in a truck.

But somehow, he managed to outlive the Kirk typecasting. In the early 80s, he landed the title role in another series, “T.J. Hooker.” Then, in the 2000s, he starred in two more series—“The Practice” and its spinoff, “Boston Legal.” And then there are the Priceline.com commercials, and the books he co-authors, and the motorcycle he co-designed, and the animated shows he voices, and the horses he raises and rides, and even the albums he recorded.

In this interview, Shatner defends himself from the attackers who descended on him for failing to attend Leonard Nimoy’s funeral. 

“Obviously, I didn’t know he was going to die,” he said. “Many months prior, I’d said yes to go to a Red Cross convention fundraiser in Miami, 3000 miles away, to which a thousand people were paying a lot of money. Leonard’s funeral fell on the same day. I chose to raise funds for needy people. I will always remember my dead friend—but this was a way of honoring the living. I helped raise several million dollars.

“I was castigated quite severely. I don’t understand it. To me, there’s no choice. Because you don’t make an appearance at a funeral, doesn’t mean you don’t remember, love, honor, any more or less. It’s the grief inside you.”

Shatner is no stranger to Internet hate speech, but he manages to ignore the worst of it.

“I don’t read the nasty stuff,” he says. “What’s released by being anonymous is all the ugly vapors being breathed by a personality who feels liberated to say anything in any language about someone they envy, or don’t like. It’s a sickness. It’s a hole in somebody’s personality.”

He also weighs in with some sage observations about today’s phone camera culture. 

“That camera has changed society completely,” says Shatner. “The revolution’s all over the world. History no longer has to be written in word. You can’t burn those ‘books.’”

In the end, Shatner confessed that keeping up the kind of schedule he does isn’t without drawbacks. “It costs a lot, in terms of social sacrifice,” he said. “Relationships can go up in flames because of the amount of time devoted. Being successful and having some money brings a whole host of other problems that people who can’t pay the rent would like to have. All your relationships go through a change.”

So I asked him why he keeps up with his schedule. “What drives you? It’s not for the money any more. It’s not the fame…”

“The chauffeur,” Shatner cracked.

David Pogue is the founder of Yahoo Tech. On the Web, he’s davidpogue.com. On Twitter, he’s @pogue. On email, he’s [email protected]. He welcomes non-toxic comments in the Comments below.

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Lyft CEO: We Do Ride-Sharing, but ?Not for High Rollers?

Logan Green, the cofounder and CEO of Lyft, is a gentle, soft-spoken, idealistic man. He doesn?t do a lot of on-camera interviews. So it was a treat to interview him at the SXSW festival in Austin last week.

Lyft, like its headline-grabbing rival Uber, is a ride-sharing service. These two companies seem to do the same thing: They let you summon a car and driver with a tap in an app, with all the billing handled behind the scenes, so you don?t have to fumble for cash or card at the end of the ride.

Uber began life employing only professional chauffeurs ? black-car drivers. But Lyft started out employing ordinary folks in their own family cars, an idea that Uber soon imitated with its UberX service.

Ride-sharing is a profoundly disruptive business, as you can see if you read about the lawsuits, protests, tire slashings, and other resistance from people who prefer the status quo: taxis. But once you try one of these new car services, you won?t go back. You?ll probably save money, you?ll meet interesting people, and it?s more convenient. 

The big differences

As my conversation progressed with Green, it became clear that Green himself doesn?t see Uber and Lyft as similarly as the public does. ?Our goal was never to create a better taxi,? Green says. ?Our goal was to completely change transportation. Change traffic. And make it possible to get anywhere you want to go without owning a car.? 

To that end, Lyft recently launched Lyft Line, a service that matches you up with other passengers going in your direction. You each pay a much lower fare, and the world is spared the congestion and pollution of a second car going to the same destination.

From the sound of it, I didn?t imagine that Lyft Line would work. This is, after all, America ? land of the pointless SUV, land where the best-selling car is a pickup truck. What red-blooded American would sign up to share a ride with a total stranger?

But Green told me that already, in San Francisco, one-third of all Lyft rides are Lyft Line rides. It?s catching on, at least there. (Uber also has a version of this: UberPool.)

More:

Uber Secrets: 18 Things You Didn?t Know About Uber or Lyft ? and Some You?ll Wish You Still Didn?t

The Yahoo Tech Guide to Ride-Sharing Etiquette

Uber?s Very Bad Week

12 Ways to Avoid Uber and Still Get Home Safely

The next step in Lyft?s evolution is Driver Destination. That?s where you, a Lyft customer, have somewhere you need to drive yourself. You flip your app into Driver mode, enter your destination, and get matched with somebody else taking a trip along that route. You make some money for a drive you were going to take anyway (to work, for example), and your passenger pays very little.

All these initiatives are additional steps toward Green?s dream: to make it less expensive to take Lyft cars all the time than to own a car. 

Dirty ride-share tricks

But where Lyft, like its CEO, comes across as gentle and optimistic, its rival Uber has earned a reputation for cutthroat, even dirty tactics. Uber has tried to poach Lyft drivers; has called Lyft rides and then canceled them, just to mess Lyft up; has revealed that it can track the whereabouts of individual customers.

The aggressive behavior is paying off, at least from a business perspective. Uber has received far more venture capital than Lyft ($5 billion to $850 million) and is in many more cities (269 around the world, versus 65 U.S cities for Lyft).

The pink car mustaches and fist-bumps that once distinguished the Lyft experience are mostly gone now, but the Lyft philosophy ? that people are nice, that everyone can win when we collaborate ? lives on. As the company continues to make transportation greener, friendlier, and less expensive, Green expects that Lyft?s differences from Uber will become clearer and clearer.

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Exclusive: William Shatner?s $30 Billion Kickstarter Campaign to Save California

This story is being featured as part of our "Yahoo Best of 2015" series. It was originally published on April 17, 2015.

Update: William Shatner's new site, Shatner's Water, is now live.

William Shatner. Wow. He's 84 years old, looks 65, and juggles a schedule that would exhaust a team of ten. Book projects, TV projects, tech projects, horse-riding projects, charity projects. And his willingness to embrace the tech world is impressive; he's got YouTube channels, he's conducted Kickstarter projects, and he has a huge Twitter presence: more than 2 million followers. (He's tweeted 30,000 times so far — and yes, it's really him.)

The hour he spent with me in a Yahoo Tech Mix interview wasn't even enough to scratch the surface.

We'll post more of that interview shortly, but this bit couldn't wait: "You're gonna get a scoop here," Shatner told me. This is it:

"California's in the midst of a 4-year-old drought," he said. "They tell us there's a year's supply of water left. If it doesn't rain next year, what do 20 million people in the breadbasket of the world do? In a place that's the fifth-largest GDP — if California were a country, it'd be fifth in line — we're about to be arid! What do you do about it?”

Here's the plan: 

"So I'm starting a Kickstarter campaign. I want $30 billion to build a pipeline like the Alaska pipeline. Say, from Seattle — a place where there's a lot of water. There's too much water. How bad would it be to get a large, 4-foot pipeline, keep it above-ground — because if it leaks, you're irrigating!"

And where would this water pipeline go?

"Bring it down here and fill one of our lakes! Lake Mead!"

I was a little skeptical. It didn't sound doable. The political hassles, the fights with local towns, the environmental impact.

"No, it's simple," Shatner replied. "They did it in Alaska Why can't they do it along Highway 5? This whole area's about to go under!"

Shatner conceded that even if he's not able to raise the money, the effort will at least raise consciousness about the severity of California's drought.

"If I don't make $30 billion, I'll give the money to a politician who says, I'll build it.! Obviously, it's to raise awareness that something more than just closing your tap — so why not a pipeline?"

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DARPA?s Dan Kaufman: How the Government?s Willy Wonka Factory Creates Technology that Changes the World?

Even if you think our government is, on the whole, inept or corrupt, here and there you?ll find pockets of spectacular genius in agencies that really, truly work. Classic case: DARPA.

That?s the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. It?s the group of brainiacs whose work over the years has led us to the computer mouse, GPS on cellphones, our phones? accelerometers, Siri, night-vision goggles, and, oh, by the way, the Internet.

Here?s another example of DARPA?s offspring: the self-driving car. DARPA conducted an open autonomous automobile competition. The 2005 winner was Sebastian Thrun, who later joined Google. There, he further developed his robotic vehicle into what we now know as Google?s self-driving car.

In this interview, I sat down with Dan Kaufman, who?s become known as DARPA Dan. In truth, he leads only one of DARPA?s six divisions ? the Information Innovation Office ? but he?s become the public face of DARPA, at least in part because of the profile that 60 Minutes did on him recently.

DARPA has a crazy structure. The agency consists of only 100 technical people, who sign on for a term of only four years ? but it has $3 billion to spend. DARPA doesn?t do the work itself; it distributes that money to us. To people with great ideas that can help the U.S. military or Americans in general.

Anyone can submit a proposal in response to one of DARPA?s challenges; every proposal gets read by at least three DARPAns. And $3 billion is handed out every year to people with the best ideas.

For example, Kaufman told me that personal computers are broken. ?Why do computers come broken? Think about how strange this is! You go to the store, give them two to three thousand dollars, get your PC or your Mac, and what do they tell you? ?Install antivirus and patch it.? Think about that wording for a minute! Like this jacket ? if I went and bought it and the first thing they said was, ?Patch it,? I?d say, ?No! Why don?t you give me one without holes in it???

So DARPA is now working on the next generation of operating systems ? the ones that will control our cars and our home devices ? and devising them to be secure from the beginning.

DARPA is also working on protecting our computers from the increasing problem of cyberattacks, by pursuing a principle called binary diversity.

?The reason we?re all alive today, and not dead from the bubonic plague,? Kaufman said, ?is that our immune systems are all a little different, and they change over time. Why can?t a computer work that way? Each one?s slightly different. Your computer can?t infect my computer. We won?t have these large-scale attacks, and you probably won?t even bother trying, because it?s not worth your time.?

And Siri? Was it really a DARPA military project? Yes, it was. The version on an iPhone is actually much better than the one that DARPA originated ? but sure enough, Siri is the product of your tax dollars.

In short, DARPA is ?100 of some of the smartest people in the world, and there?s no egos. You?re just trying to help other people out,? Kaufman told me. ?We?re the Willy Wonka factory for nerds.?

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Coming Up from SxSW: Pogue Interviews the Founders of Twitter, Reddit, and Kickstarter. And Neil deGrasse Tyson!

David Pogue interviewed T-Mobile CEO John Legere (left) at the Yahoo Tech TechMix event at CES in January.

The Yahoo Tech team is gearing up to cover the biggest tech + BBQ event of the season, South by Southwest Interactive. And, this year, our own David Pogue will be conducting four great TechMix interviews with incredible icons of technology. I’m doing one, as well. We will be at a big Yahoo pavilion that you can visit if you’re there. And if you’re not, watch the livestreams of these interviews here on Yahoo Tech (or afterward on playback).

Our live schedule is below. Note that times are Central. Pacific is two hours earlier, Eastern one hour later. If you’ll be at SxSW, grab seats using the Tickets links.

– March 9, 2 p.m. Central time: Yancey Strickler, co-founder and CEO of Kickstarter. David Pogue interviewing. Get a ticket! – March 10, 10 a.m. Central time: Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of reddit. Rafe Needleman interviewing. Get a ticket!

– March 10, 6 p.m. Central time: Brandon Stanton, photographer, “Humans of New York.” David Pogue interviewing. Get a ticket! – March 11, 2 p.m. Central time: Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter and CEO of Jelly. David Pogue interviewing. Get a ticket! Live interviews will be at the Brazos Hall, 204 E. Fourth St., near the convention center in Austin. If you’d like to join us in person, grab a ticket fast.

In addition, we’re taping an interview with Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium and host of the new version of Cosmos. Watch for that. It will air shortly after the taping.

Got questions for any of these fascinating people? Email us and we’ll see if we can slip them into the interview.

Watch this space for playback of all these interviews if you can’t join us in person!

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Pogue Interviews Neil deGrasse Tyson on the Relaunch of ‘Cosmos’

AUSTIN — At the SxSW conference here, our own David Pogue sat down with Neil deGrasse Tyson to discuss science, space, education and of course Tyson’s new role as the host of the TV show Cosmos. You’ll want to watch this great interview. Here’s what you’ll see:  – How the new Cosmos is a continuation of Carl Sagan’s 1980 show. – What it’s like to be called the “sexiest astrophysicist” by People magazine.   – The fact that Neil’s AMAs (ask me anythings) on reddit have been the site’s most popular AMAs ever. Here’s one to check out. – The state of scientific curiosity in the United States. – How much the rotation of the earth affects a field goal kick from the 50-yard line. – How The Big Bang Theory’s portrayal of geeks is good for science. – When Neil is going to “take a break from the universe.” Bonus fact: Both David Pogue and Neil deGrasse Tyson have hosted the science show NOVA scienceNOW. Check out Yahoo Tech for more great TechMix interviews from SxSW.

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Full Interview Replay: Yahoo Tech Interviews Kickstarter Co-founder Yancey Strickler

AUSTIN — Yancey Strickler, co-founder of the crowdfunding site Kickstarter, sat down for a talk with David Pogue at a Yahoo Tech Mix session at the SxSW festival.

The crowdfunding pioneer (who hates the term “crowdfunding”) talked about the service’s milestones, its mission and his favorite Kickstarter projects.

He was pleased to confirm that the site had passed $1 billion in transactions — about a week ago, he said. Of that funding, $250 million has gone to design and technology projects (the kind of things Yahoo Tech covers in its Kickstarter Reviews section).

Strickler said the world of hardware and product design has changed completely since his site came online. Today, he said, new hardware projects can be started and brought to market by a few dedicated people, and the journey from idea to prototype to deliverable product is open and transparent. With crowdfunding, the community of backers feels committed and connected, compared with “just buying something off the shelf at Best Buy.”

“Kickstarter is not a store,” Strickler said: It’s a way to connect, to be a fan. He added, “Stores are boring.”

Furthermore, Strickler said that backing a Kickstarter project is not just about getting a product, and it’s certainly not about investing in a company and hoping to profit from its success. It allows customers to forge a deeper relationship with a product. In answer to a question, he asked, “Have you forgotten what it is to be a fan? Have you forgotten what it is to love someone?”

Strickler is passionate about his company’s mission. He views it as “a public trust” and not simply a business. For this reason, he wants to remain pure and independent. “We will never IPO and never sell to a bigger company,” he said. “Kickstarter is more important than me or any of us.” See the clip.

By the numbers To give a sense of Kickstarter’s journey so far, Strickler rolled out some numbers.

• People who have pledged to Kickstarter projects: 6 million • Total number of pledges: 13 million • Number of projects: 150,000 • Projects that have hit their funding goal: 60,000 (44 percent) • People who have backed more than one project: 1.7 million • Projects that Yancey Strickler himself has backed: 972

Favorite projects Strickler was forthcoming on the projects he’s backed that he has loved the most. Check out the clip to see what they are:

For more SxSW coverage from the Yahoo Tech team, click here.