Bob Widlar - Personality

Personality

Widlar lived the life of an alcoholic loner, who went on all-night-long bar binges. According to Jack Gifford, Widlar liked to harass and fight others when drunk, but regularly overestimated his own abilities in such confrontations. On one occasion he was "absolutely clocked" by the offended Mike Scott, a future CEO of Apple Inc.

Charles Sporck retold another incident: during a European roadshow Widlar got drunk and publicly refused to speak to the audience unless he got more gin. Sporck said that "We had no choice. We had to get his glass filled up. And then he went on with the lecture. And he, you know, he got plastered, but the interesting part of it is he was just so damn smart, you know. Even drunk he could just wow these people."

According to fellow analog circuit designer Bob Pease, Widlar cut down on his drinking shortly before death. Gifford said in 2002: "He stopped drinking but I think the damage was probably done, you know, in the first twenty years." According to Bo Lojek, "as he was older he was for the first time able to keep relationship with one woman."

Widlar's irrational behavior is remembered in legends and anecdotes which, according to Bob Pease, are largely true. He did practice widlarising – methodically destroying a faulty component or a flawed prototype with a sledgehammer. At the same time, he eradicated all unwanted sounds from his lab by fighting noise with noise. He installed "hassler" devices that emitted high-pitched sounds whenever someone talked too loud, and even blew up an annoying public address speaker with firecrackers. Jim Williams recalled an incident when, after tracing external electromagnetic interference to the control tower of the San Jose airport, Widlar telephoned the airport and demanded they shut down the transmitter.

However, the story about Widlar bringing a goat to trim the lawn in front of his office, retold by The New York Times after his death, was incorrect. It was a sheep, not a goat; Widlar brought her in his Mercedes-Benz convertible for just one day, which included a photo op for the local journalists. According to Pease, Widlar abandoned her in the nearest bar; according to Lojek the sheep was "mysteriously stolen".