Talbott was born in California near San Francisco in the Summer of Love, 1967, not too far from Menlo Atherton High School when Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks started playing music together. Growing up swimming on the swim team at Menlo Circus Club, Talbott had a passion for swimming. His mother, Ginger Crowell, a Fine Arts graduate from Stanford University, raised him with a solid appreciation for art. His father, Bill Crowell, an Engineering graduate from Stanford University, provided Talbott with a solid appreciation for computers and high fidelity sound systems.
Meanwhile over in England, Led Zeppelin was being formed in 1967, a band Talbott gained appreciation and love for as he grew older. Music, art, computer programming, nature, and swimming were all passions of Talbott in his childhood. Growing up in Silicon Valley in the same towns as Larry Ellison, Steve Jobs, and other computer revolutionaries at the foot of the Santa Cruz Mountains in Woodside, California, a passion for both nature and computers were deep seated in his DNA.
The concept of an Internet Radio Show started in the early days of the Web when Talbott and early entrepreneur partner Aaron Walsh, envisioned Tecknowbabble, a non-starter ahead of its time. We had lined up Scott McNealy, for our first interview/guest. Scott was also a Stanford graduate and founder of SUN Microsystems (SUN stood for Stanford University Network). Unfortunately Technobabble never made it beyond the drawing board stage. But the idea of leveraging the Internet to interview people and broadcast it world-wide never left the back of Talbott’s mind.
Talbott regained his childhood passion for swimming in 2012, signing up for the Minuteman Masters at Hanscom Air Force Base near Lincoln, Massachusetts. Open water swimming (OWS) soon followed when he met with people who had swum the English Channel, the Mt Everest of OWS. In 2017, Talbott completed an English Channel relay team, Channeling Greatness, with Hugh Darlington, Louise Darlington, Jeannie Zappe, Michelle White, and Nabil Radouane. In 2018, Talbott completed 20 Bridges, successfully swimming 28.5 miles around Manhattan. This put Talbott closer to completing his goal to complete the Triple Crown of OWS by age 60.
In 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Talbott seized the opportunity to start his project, Talbott.TV, which could culminate his passions into a way to socialize, and share stories, about passions such as swimming, sharks, and other interests with the world. The first 8 episodes have been focused on Open Water Swimming (OWS) and marathon swimming (swimming 10km/6miles or more without assistance from wet suits, standing up, or holding onto a boat). We will see what more adventures we can talk about as the episodes continue!