X-Message-Number: 1311
Date: 15 Oct 1992 13:20:48 -0700 (MST)
From: 
Subject: Re: cryonics: #1304 - #1306

Unbundling, Splitting, Strucure of Alcor
In Cryomsg 1304, Keith posts my thoughts on splitting Alcor into two
organizations (patient care and suspension/marketing) and follows this
with further discussions between us. Some comments:
1) Keith seems to feel that, because the patients would be under the care
of an organization other than the one that performs the suspensions, that
the living members would no longer care enough to help the patients if the
Storage Co. were to get into trouble. Yet these were the same people who,
Keith says, would "give till they bleed" if the combined organization were
to fail. Which is it? Futhermore, in my view, the patients would not be
shipped off to the Storage Co. and forgotten. The people who have an interest
in their welfare (relatives &c.) would have the legal right to monitor the
health of the Storage Co. and yank "their" people out of the Storage Co.'s
care, if certain well defined warning signs appeared indicating that Storage
Co. was not doing its job. Assuming that the first such warning sign would be
"bad odors coming from the dewars" is unwarranted: regular auditing of the
booksof Storage Co., and physical inspection of the Patient Care Facility
under the terms of the contract between Storage Co. and the patient Reanimation
Committee(s) is a more reasonable assumption. Nor would this arrangement
benefit only patients with enough suspension funding to have individual or
family Reanimation Committees: living people who care about patients without
such watchdog committees could merely observe the behavior of the committees.
If those committees start to remove their patients from the care of Storage
Co., this would warn others to investigate further and perhaps prepare to
take custody of the other patients. "Who would want to accept the patients?"
The same people in both the bundled and unbundled cases--other cryonicists and
relatives of the patients.
Could Alcor be successfully split (both legally and physically) right now? As
Keith says, we have to do some financial and legal analysis to answer that
question. Could Alcor's suspension operations subsidize its patient care
operations if the patients were threatened right now? No--our patient care fund
is "fat" at present; it's the suspension/marketing part that's economically
marginal. (Perhaps we need to reconsider the "10% rule".) So there will be
pressure to rely on the patient care fund to support the suspension operations.
Yet if the suspension operations cease, this is not an irreversible disaster:
the people involved can reorganize and go on. This is not the case if patient
care operations cease. As I see it: a) there is risk associated with caring
for the patients, b) there is risk associated with performing suspensions,
c) the helpless patients should not be exposed to unnecessary risk, d) it has
not been shown that concern and support for the patients will be less if they
are cared for by a separate organization. Therefore separating the two portions
of the cryonics program will enhance the security of the patients. It may also
increase the risk of failure of the suspension operation--but such a failure
can be recovered from. Yet as I also point out in an earlier posting,
unbundling this way is likely to decrease the risk of failure of the suspension
portion if the management of the Suspension Co. takes advantage of the
increased operating freedom allowed by removing the responsibility for patient
care from their shoulders. Unbundling need not be a zero-sum move: both halves
of the cryonics enterprise can be managed so as to heighten their chances of
success.
2) Keith intimates that I committed him to helping me develop a business plan
for the Storage Co. My response may be lost to the reader because he prints it
further down in the text: I was only acknowledging his advice as help.
3) Though Keith states that Carlos (as CEO) "heads up" Alcor, I stand by my
statement that Alcor is not a "sole proprietorship". Alcor's Board of Directors
is responsible for its success or failure. The Board's function is to plan for
Alcor's growth and hire and evaluate the CEO according to whether these plans
are successfully implemented. The Board must also of course evaluate the plans
themselves to make sure they are realistic! That in the past the Board has not
done this job, and that Carlos has taken on this function, is perhaps the root
problem of our organization.

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