Josef Berger: From Eastern Europe to Silicon Valley

Tell us about your past.
I remember being a five-year-old boy in my hometown about 60 miles east of Prague, playing on our kitchen floor while somebody’s harsh voice was screaming on the radio. It must have been the spring of 1945, shortly before we were liberated. Father said, that’s Hitler. Years later, I was in Prague as a young man when the Russians invaded in August of 1968. Someone pounded on our door at three in the morning as we heard planes arriving in the city.

Through a series of lucky coincidences and youthful audacity, I got an invitation to work at Stanford. We managed to leave the occupied Czechoslovakia and, before the year was up, I remember watching my three-year-old daughter walk off the plane at SFO. That remains one of my happiest memories.

What a transition. What was it like?
Before leaving Prague, I studied an old German atlas my father used to follow the WW2 fronts. I found out that California sits on the same latitude as Northern Africa, so I assumed it would be hot. Instead, when we arrived in October and I began biking to Stanford, it was anything but. That was an unexpected introduction. But we were in California!

My perspective differs from that of many people. We arrived in this country with only four dollars, but I had a great job. What we felt was an extraordinary sense of release, of freedom. The timing was pure luck. We arrived at the very beginning of Silicon Valley, and we rode a wave of prosperity when it was just taking shape.

Why did you choose engineering?
I come from a family of entrepreneurs. My grandfather founded a company in northern Bohemia, about one hundred years ago, for making Christmas decorations. My father developed an ingenious spring clasp mechanism for hanging these glass-blown ornaments that is still used today. When the communists took over Czechoslovakia in 1948, it was all nationalized, which is to say it was stolen. Remarkably, after everything that happened, the company was later resurrected by my cousins and still exists.

My father was a mechanical engineer. I chose electrical engineering. After Stanford I spent ten years at HP, and I have enormous respect for the original HP culture. After HP, in a typical Silicon Valley style I worked at several small companies and startups.

What does this country mean to you?
It means freedom. Intellectual and spiritual freedom. Freedom of expression. Freedom of thought. For Americans, these freedoms often feel like air, invisible because they have always been present.

Why did you choose Wealth Architects?
Our previous advisors were former HP employees, and they treated us with respect, trust and transparency. When they became part of a larger firm, we decided to look for a new advisor. What first stood out about Wealth Architects was their professionalism. They also approached wealth in a much broader sense, not only as monetary wealth.

After becoming clients, we began attending Wealth Architects University events, including Laura Carstensen’s presentation on longevity. Experiences like that reinforced our confidence in the broader concept of wealth.

What advice would you give for living a wealthier life?
Two of my grandsons are 24 and 26. When the coronavirus hit, they missed a semester abroad. When they started working, my advice was simple: go travel…not as tourists, but to truly live somewhere else. They are quitting their jobs and planning to go to Prague. They are learning the language now. As an old philosopher said: “As many times you are a person as many languages you know.”

Understanding how people live in different cultures matters. It changes how one sees the world.

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