Why did you write a six-volume scientific cookbook?

When I was two years old, I told my mother that I would be a scientist; when I was nine I insisted on cooking Thanksgiving dinner. In the mid-1990s, I took a leave of absence from Microsoft and went to culinary school in France, and got back into cooking with a vengeance. The only way to learn about modern cooking techniques now is to work at a cutting-edge restaurant. I saw an opportunity to write a book that would cover modern techniques and the science behind them [see page 574]. I hired a team and we kept getting more ambitious. I think ours is the only cookbook in the world to cover prion science and quorum sensing in cells. We could have gone further. We decided not to include pastry and desserts.

Can you see science-driven cooking catching on?

Credit: R. M. SMITH/THE COOKING LAB

Yes. Chocolate cake with a liquid centre was once a novelty, but is now in every shopping mall in the United States. Some of these techniques are incredibly convenient and tasty. We have a chapter on emulsions, with an indestructible vinaigrette, and a rapid souffle recipe. I think most steakhouses should use sous vide cooking [slow cooking in an airtight plastic bag immersed in a low-temperature water bath]. You can get the steak done perfectly without worrying about timing, and cheaper cuts are just as tender as a prime filet mignon. I think science-based cooking will be in every US steakhouse within a few years. Once you explain the science, people will find uses for the techniques.

You have many interests, including palaeontology and wildlife photography. How do your pursuits fit together?

Each makes a good diversion from the other, and occasionally they filter back into my work at Intellectual Ventures. Wildlife photography is about travelling to a beautiful place and taking pictures. Palaeontology is about going into the desert and walking around until you find a bone sticking out of the ground. Our chapter on meat opens with a picture that I took of a lion cub eating a wildebeest. Some of the technical solutions that we cover in the cookbook have led us to consider inventions to improve food safety in developing countries, where adequate sanitation is often lacking.

In 2000, you pledged US$1 million to help Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen fund the Allen Telescope Array in California. Why do you believe in the private funding of science?

Venture capital has grown faster than government science funding. If you can show that you can make money rather than begging for a grant, people will compete to fund you. I'm not suggesting this is a panacea. Outside the life sciences, people don't tend to fund things with a level of technical risk. We've created Intellectual Ventures to do just this. We invest in existing patents, help institutions to develop new technologies, and fund inventors and scientists to come up with new ideas. If we could find a way to fund more science and innovation at venture-capital growth rates, that would be a wonderful thing.

What makes an invention successful?

The best way to stimulate invention is to get the right set of smart people in a room talking to each other. What separates successful from unsuccessful inventions is not the quality of the idea. To be successful, an invention needs to have a passionate advocate. It requires the initial flash of genius — then believing and investing in it.