by Ciro Santilli (@cirosantilli, 35)
Mostly on vintage electronics. Lots of focus on microwave, which he has worked a lot with.
Has been going wild with restoration and reverse engineering of the Apollo moon mission.
Video 1.
Inside the WILD Lab of CuriousMarc by Keysight Labs (2022)
Source.
Marc Verdiell is a French electrical engineer born in 1963 or 1964[ref] and best known for being the creator and host of the CuriousMarc YouTube channel where he does mind blowing repairs and reverse engineering of vintage computers and other electronic equipment.
Marc made $58.4m from the sale of LightLogic, an optoelectronics company he founded, to Intel in April 2001. This was just after the dot-com crash, but Intel apparently still correctly believed that the networking and the Internet would continue to grow and was investing in the area. His associate Frank Shum sued claiming he should be credited for some of the inventions sold but lost and Marc got it all.[ref][ref][ref]. Marc was then almost immediately appointed an Intel fellow at the extremelly early age of 37, and then stayed for a few years at Intel until 2006 according to his LinkedIn.[ref][ref]
Figure 1.
Marc Verdiell at the Computer History Museum
. Source. Location inferred from Marc's videos, but likely, he often frequents the place, and it looks a bit like that.
Marc's full name is actualy Jean-Marc Verdiell, but Ciro Santilli remembers there was one YouTube video where he mentions he gave up on "Jean" partly because anglophones would murder its pronounciation all the time.
ppubs.uspto.gov/dirsearch-public/print/downloadPdf/20160274316 also suggests he may have a seldom used middle name "André", though that would be unusual in French custom
Marc's PhD thesis is listed at: theses.fr/1990PA112048 and it is entitled:
Mise en phase de reseaux de lasers a semi-conducteur
which is translated into English as:
Phase locking of semiconductor laser arrays
but the full text is not available online.
Video 1.
Profile of Marc Verdiell by Gizmodo (2018)
Source.
youtu.be/tJ2-kkhghD4?t=74 gives his house's location Atherton, California, part of Silicon Valley. youtu.be/tJ2-kkhghD4?t=279 shows his amazing garden a bit more.
youtu.be/ZgAreiFXhJk?t=253 lists some famous people who live there. It's like a micro heaven.
And a person who makes open educational content like Marc, truly deserves it.
radaris.com/p/Jean-Marc/Verdiell/ and many other sources list the exact address as:
48 Linden Ave, Atherton, CA 94027
On Google Maps: maps.app.goo.gl/LM2iN9fz6YBteggp8
www.realtyhop.com/property-records/search/hoang-oanh-verdiell mentions that the property was bought on 2013-11-07 for $8,650,000 and lists other properties they've bought and sold and possibly inhabited:
  • 2002-03-21: sold 4159 El Camino Way, Palo Alto, CA Unit B
  • 2001-06-18: bought 763 Florales Dr, Palo Alto, CA
www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEcnjh0lSsY give a tour of the house given by the real state agent Ken DeLeon. The dude has a very suspicious Wikipedia page: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_DeLeon He is mentioend e.g. at www.forbes.com/sites/erincarlyle/2013/12/20/ken-deleon-top-silicon-valley-sales-agent-why-chinese-buyers-love-palo-alto/ as selling a lot to the Chinese.
A quick look on Google Maps show that that area is full of some incredible mansions. They managed to keep the entire place green and every house has a pool. Wikipedia comments web.archive.org/web/20220906010554/https://www.forbes.com/home-improvement/features/most-expensive-zip-codes-us/:
Atherton is known for its wealth; in 1990 and 2019, Atherton was ranked as having the highest per capita income among U.S. towns with a population between 2,500 and 9,999, and it is regularly ranked as the most expensive ZIP Code in the United States [(94027)]. The town has very restricting zoning, only permitting one single-family home per acre and no sidewalks. The inhabitants have strongly opposed proposals to permit more housing construction
and Forbes confirms it for 2022: web.archive.org/web/20220906010554/https://www.forbes.com/home-improvement/features/most-expensive-zip-codes-us/, by far on top.
Starting in 2016, Marc appears to be have had a small court battle with some building contractors led by the Yip family, Cynthia Yip and Wai Yip, as Javelin Construction Inc. for selling them "a brand-new but defective home for $9m. The Verdiells then spent $5.3m further renewing it."[ref]. After endless back-and-forth, the Verdiell's won $1.2m in 2024.[ref]
Video 2.
Soyuz Clock Part 4: How accurate is it? by CuriousMarc (2020)
Source.
The timestamp youtu.be/HKsjwT53yXw?t=580 mentions that his wife is called "Lori", and that she escaped the Soviet Union, and two of her brothers went to jail in the escape process.
The name is kind of hard to hear, but Google resolves it for us e.g. she and Marc were donnors to the Computer History Museum d1yx3ys82bpsa0.cloudfront.net/core/core-2019.pdf
Company founded by Marc Verdiell in his garage, and later acquired by Intel which was going on a optoelectronics buying spree. The division was later sold off in 2023 of course during more difficult times: www.theregister.com/2023/10/31/intel_silicon_photonics_jabil/
It's hard to understand exactly what the company did by Googling it nowadays. Sad and usual fate. Presumably something related to transceiver for fiber-optic communication. Only the patents remain: patents.google.com/?assignee=lightlogic&oq=lightlogic to tell its story to the brave.
Wife of Marc Verdiell.
d1yx3ys82bpsa0.cloudfront.net/core/core-2019.pdf lists "Marc and Lori Verdiell" as donors to the Computer History Museum, and therefore confirms her identity beyond doubt as his wife as of 2019.
www.whitepages.com/name/Lori-Verdiell gives a possible middle name starting with H giving "Lori H Verdiell". It also lists possible daughters Aurelie T Verdiell and Apolline T Verdiell.
www.linkedin.com/in/lori-verdiell-9373a5128/ is her likely profile where she describes herself as Retired Research Asssociate at PPD, a contract research organization, and as being from Atherton, California.
Ciro Santilli believes that "Lori" is an Western pseudonym of East Asian person and that her real legal name is Hoang Oanh Verdiell.
www.officialusa.com/names/Jean_marc-Verdiell/ lists her email as verdiell.lori@gmail.com, and phone (650) 493-9259.
Ciro Santilli believes that this is the legal name of Marc Verdiell's wife, a Vietnamese lady who uses "Lori" as her casual Western pseudonym of East Asian person .
The name "Hoang Oanh Verdiell" is mentioned together with Jean-Marc Verdiell in numerous locations, e.g. unicourt.com/case/ca-sca1-verdiell-et-al-v-superior-court-for-the-county-of-san-mateo-153300 and she is beyong doubt a wife.
Previously, based on www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJ2-kkhghD4 from Video "Profile of Marc Verdiell by Gizmodo (2018)" saying that she escaped from a communist country and abhors the Soviet flag, Ciro Santilli believed that Marc's wife might be East European, and that could Hoang Oanh be another wife, daughter-in-law or adpoted child.
However the identification of Marc's grown-up daughters as white-East asian mixed heavily moved Ciro's beliefe towards the theory that "Lori" is just a pseudonym for Hoang Oanh, his one and only wife, God bless.
Her possible maiden names include:
It is unclear why both appear.
Marc Verdiell likely has two daughters, the elder Aurelie and the younger Apolline who goes by "Apple Verdiell". Her names are listed at: www.whitepages.com/name/Lori-Verdiell, and the fact that their LinkedIn profiles:
Elder daughter of Marc Verdiell. The justification for this claim can be found at Section "Marc Verdiell's children".
She studied arts and communication. Nooooo. She must be Marc's less liked daughter :-)
Figure 1.
Aurelie Verdiell's LinkedIn profile picture.
Source.
Younger daughter of Marc Verdiell. The justification for this claim can be found at Section "Marc Verdiell's children".
In 2022 she started a Biomolecular Engineering BS at the University of Chicago. By 2024 she was already a research assistant at the Joyce Chen Lab which focuses on stem cell and tissue engineering research for cancer research, so somewhat in the same vein as her mother. She also lists poverty alleviation volunteering activities in her page. She must be cool, and secretly Marc's favorite daughter given that we went into STEM.
It is midly curious that she went to the same university as her elder sister Apolline. Was it because of her sister, or do they have other links to Chicago somehow?
Figure 1.
Apolline Verdiell's LinkedIn profile picture.
Source.
Ciro Santilli believes it likely that this is Apolline Verdiell's current usage pseudonym as shown on her LinkedIn profile: www.linkedin.com/in/appleverdiell/ and department pages: chen.uchicago.edu/apple-verdiell/.
Presumably the choice of "Apple" is because Appolline was too long for the Americans, and "Apple" sounds a bit like "Appolline". Maybe she's also a Steve Jobs fan who knows.
There is no direct evidence that this is actually her, but given the name similarity and that she has links to Atherton, California, it feels very likely.

Ancestors (6)

  1. Electronics YouTube channel
  2. Electronics bibliography
  3. Electronics
  4. Area of technology
  5. Technology
  6. Home

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