Myhrvold on Microhoo and his new cookbook

CARLSBAD, Calif.--Over lunch, I had the chance to catch up with former Microsoftie Nathan Myhrvold, who's due to speak this afternoon.

We had a throughly interesting discussion on such topics as the global food shortage and his travels to photograph glaciers and penguins as well as his forthcoming high-tech cookbook (more in a minute on that). With the grudging indulgence of the others at the table, I ham-handedly shifted the table's conversation over to Microhoo.

Myrhrvold said that he can see both the potential and potential pitfalls of a deal.

"I think it would be a challenge to manage it," he said of a deal. At the same time, he said he tends to agree with the notion that the Internet is a scale business.

"If it is indeed 'get big or go home,' you have to take a serious look" at acquisitions, he said. "It's easier to buy that scale than to build it."

As for what Myhrvold is up to, in addition to running Intellectual Ventures, the French-trained chef is also writing a cookbook on high-tech cooking, or molecular gastronomy as it is dubbed in some circles. For those with less educated palates, it includes cooking foods using things like liquid nitrogen. (Don't worry, I thought a George Foreman grill was going high-tech.)

"There's no big definitive book on this, so I'm trying to write it," Myhrvold said, adding that he hopes to finish the writing and photography this year, with a goal of having the book out late next year.

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