Information Engineer

I have been able to confirm the reason why so many people are leaving the Paul Allen Brain Project in droves. Apparently, Paul Allen’s sister, Jody Patton, who manages the Paul Allen Brain Project, is an “arrogant”, “overbearing”, and “incompetent” “dictator” who micro-manages in excess, and whose winning personality poisoned the work atmosphere and smothered creativity, motivation, and initiative. Patton says her management style is “tough but fair”, but I say, face reality, Jody Patton got the top management position because her brother is the billonaire Paul Allen, not because she was qualified. Evidently, she is not qualified to manage a project of this size and complexity. The proof is in the pudding; If Jody Patton could manage a project properly, then why is everyone bailing out of the Paul Allen Brain Project? She took a noble initiative to map gene expression throughout the brain and suffocated the life out of it by her incompetence.

So it would appear that my Paul Allen Brain Project Hypothesis is probably wrong, that there is no-one intentionally trying to sabotage the project, but that the Paul Allen Brain Project fiasco was due to Jody Patton’s incompetence as a project manager.

Well one good thing to come out of this is that now I know to steer clear of this walking disaster. Paul Allen made a commendable step to advance neuroscience by mapping gene expression throughout the brain, but his big mistake was in handing over the project to his incompetent sister. It is unfortunate that Paul Allen did not possess the objectivity to see the mismatch between his sister and the Allen Brain Project, but then again, Paul Allen’s biography reads like a story of failure after failure, and the Allen Brain Project is just another failure to add to the huge list of his. When is he ever going to learn? The Allen Brain Project could have been a blazing success if he didn’t appoint his sister to lead the project. If he was more involved with the project, he would have been aware of the problems involved with having her manage and would be in a position to replace her. If Jody Patton had been replaced early on in the Allen Brain Project, when it became evident that she was incompetent, then I have no doubts that the Allen Brain Project would be very successful today. Instead, we have mostly everyone who once supported the project has abandoned it, due largely to Jody Patton’s incompetence. It’s high time she took responsibility for the projects short-comings. By making this post about it, I am assured that many out there who are interested in what’s going on in neuroscience will know the truth.

It has been said that Paul Allen is the accidental zillionaire. Many cried foul at this characterization of him, but after his many mishaps and mistakes, and now the Paul Allen Brain Atlas fiasco which will set back big time neuroscience for at least a decade, I am beginning to think that a better characterization of him would be “the Idiot” (which, as it happens, in his town of Seattle, he actually is known by the name, the “village idiot”).

Am I being too hard on Paul Allen and his incredibly incompetent sister, Jody Patton? Nah, I don’t think so!