X-Message-Number: 30243
Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2008 21:34:09 -0800 (PST)
From: david pizer <>
Subject: Alcor may already be in its final decline 

For years Alcor was the leader in cryonics.  But now
it may be in its final decline. Like Rome, Alcor may
not even realize it is on the way out until it is too
late.  It pains me to have to keep bringing this
subject up.  I have dedicated a large part of my life
to Alcor.  They are in their present building and have
a few million dollars worth of equity almost soley
because of me.  They got to Scottsdale, the mayor
invited Alcor's president to his office and gave him
the key to the city, when the mayor of Riverside was
trying to get Alcor put out of business. They got to
Scottsdale mainly because of me.  I love Alcor. But I
feel compelled to bring this serious problem to the
Alcor membership because I think that unless it is
fixed it will eventually cause the death of Alcor. 

WHAT ARE THE SYMPTOMS

After the decline of ACS and TransTime the two
remaining cryonics companies were Alcor and CI.

Many cryoncists considered Alcor the leader in
technology and CI having the most affordable prices. 
Although CI members did not concede having inferior
technology.  I believe that Alcor had many more funded
members and more patients.  That may have finally
changed.

But even if an Alcor member once felt that Alcor had
an edge on technology that feeling among cryonicists
is changing now that CI has access to Suspended
Animation's technology.

If fact one can argue that CI now has several
advantages over Alcor.  Here is what they might be.

CI has two suspension options:  A more affordable one
that is much cheaper then even Alcor's neuro;  and one
that is similar to Alcor with the help of SA.

Alcor only has the more costly options.  They do have
the neuro but it is a public relations nightmare.  It
helped turn what could have been the Ted Williams
success story into the Ted Williams disaster.

But even more important, CI has a more member friendly
way of electing it's business managers.  CI trusts its
members to be smart enough to vote for their directors
and officers.  It holds its directors accountable for
their actions by causing them to stand for
re-election.  They have a reputation for making far
less business mistakes then Alcor because of this.

Alcor has an elite system that says the Alcor
suspension members are too stupid to be allowed to
vote for directors.  (I know that sounds rude but that
is the truth.  The directors just don't think the
members are as smart as they are, and certainly not
smart enough to be trusted to vote for directors)

So, Alcor has a true dictatorship.  The 9 dictators
re-elect themselves every year and are accountable to
no one but themselves.  They don't have to account to
the stockholders, members, patients, and they don't
have to make a profit.  They can even loose hundreds
of thousands of dollars, as their president did with
the Cells for Life disaster, or have it embezzled by
employees as has happened, or many of the other
mistakes we know about and lots of others that I
believe have been hidden in secret meetings from the
membership and after the smoke clears they simply
re-elect themselves and waddle on.

Both of these deficiencies in Alcor (less suspension
options and dictatorship-style management) are
beginning to take their toll.  Membership growth is
slowing down.  Finance problems are a constant topic
at board meetings who knows what goes on in the secret
parts of the meetings.

Some of the best and wisest old Alcor members are
either quitting cryonics, or joining CI, or at least
thinking about options like that.  How many ex-Alcor
presidents are no longer Alcor members?  The red
headed guy - I forgot his name he was the second or
third  president I believe, both Chamberlains, Mike
Darwin - the man who made Alcor in the beginning, they
are all gone.  Is ex-President Waynick still a member?

 Most important: Gone is the optimism and enthusiasm
that once was Alcor's.

New people do come into Alcor, but after a few years
they realize that they will never have much influence
unless they agree to parrot the existing board members
views.  Most of the new members, the  younger crowd,
have too much in the way or moral principles to do
this, so some of them quit.  For every 2 or 3 people
that go through the complicated process of becoming an
Alcor member one quits.  This tells us that people
like the idea that Alcor stands for they just don't
like the way Alcor is run.  They  join, they learn how
things are managed at Alcor, they leave.

As the wise old members and the enthusiastic young
members begin to leave Alcor and perhaps join CI, they
take their ideas,their time and energy, their money,
and they contribute it to CI.  CI Continues to gain on
Alcor.  How long until they pass Alcor?  Have they
already passed Alcor in amount of patients?  How much
after that until Alcor with it's bulging overhead and
dwindling incomes begins to crumble?  

Good old members, people like myself, who have done
many fine things for Alcor, go to the board and they
tell the board that the board needs to give the vote
to its membership.  The board members, fearing they
cannot win re-election by the membership because of
their past record or managing Alcor, will never give
the membership the vote, as they want to keep control
of Alcor (because they are, after all, control freaks
- I am sorry but that is what they are parinoid
control freaks who do not trust anyone but themselves
to vote for board members - I am trying to write this
nicely but let's also be honest).

CONCLUSION

Can anyone think of a way to get some sense into the
heads of the existing Alcor board members and get them
to realize one of the oldest principle in the business
world:
  People that are accountable, with all other things
equal, will make less mistakes and do a better job
then those in similar positions that are not
accountable.  

At present, Alcor directors are not accountable to
anyone.  





      
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