Washougal man's memoir depicts unplanned life
May 14-WASHOUGAL - David Knight has been a Silicon Valley executive, commercial fisherman, boatbuilder, coffee entrepreneur and bus-dweller - a life so varied that his memoir, "Journeys Over Water," took shape not as a traditional chronology, but as a collection of self-contained stories.
"The book is compartmentalized in the way (my life has been) lived," Knight, a Washougal resident, said. "I never had a plan in life at all, ever. The question of 'What do you want to be when you grow up?' never came up for me, so everything was just like, 'OK, well, let's try that. It's a new adventure.' That's kind of the theme that runs through the book - a life unplanned."
Knight describes himself in the book as "an accidental Silicon Valley insider, philosophical wanderer, and Valentine Michael Smith" - the protagonist of Robert Heinlein's classic novel "Stranger in a Strange Land," a human raised by Martians who returns to Earth and finds its customs baffling.
Knight's journey took him from Wisconsin and Colorado to California, Alaska, Hawaii and, eventually, Washougal, where he settled in 2006. In Silicon Valley, he worked for Micromask Inc., Micrographic Products, Inc. and the Sierracin Corporation, then later founded and served as the CEO of the Shearwater Group, which sold chip design software worldwide. In Alaska, he founded the Shearwater Marine Group, which sold marine products to seafood companies and processors on the West Coast. In Hawaii, he founded the Kona Premium Coffee Company.
"He's a very interesting person," said Joan Drake, who worked with and for Knight in Silicon Valley for many years. "He definitely took the 'unplanned' and turned it into something. It didn't matter if that wasn't where he was going, he embraced it as a new adventure."
That mentality has led him into vastly different chapters of life, from serving as a company CEO to living in a bus.
"It's a cliche, but I would have to say I was luckier than anybody deserves," he said. "I went places that other people didn't get the chance to go to, and I got to do things that were endlessly interesting."
"Journeys Over Water" describes an array of strange and often funny episodes, including a Shinkansen ride through the Japanese countryside at 200 miles per hour; a walk with a wolf; the life of a pig "whose international consequences summoned admirals and eventually a German emperor"; and a great-great-aunt who crossed a storm-wracked Lake Erie in 1853 with 600 passengers and a leaking hull "so that the rest of us could exist."
Knight has navigated it all with a dry sense of humor, curiosity and a generous dose of irreverence.
"We in life have a lot of serious stuff thrown at us, and we shouldn't make a bigger deal out of it than it deserves," he said. "We're just all trying here. We all have opinions, we all struggle and we all make mistakes. I try to not take it too seriously. And I think you have to be a little irreverent sometimes to get through it all."
Knight has not been afraid to try new things, and he hasn't been afraid to fail.
"David was never afraid to get up if he fell down and just keep right on going," said Bob Nelson, a longtime friend of Knight's and the founder and former owner of the Kealakekua, Hawaii-based Lehuula Farms coffee company. "He's a prime example of an individual that would continually learn from his mistakes. He's extremely knowledgeable, and he's the kind of guy that, when he pursues something or develops an interest in it, gives it his all."
Knight's curiosity hasn't faded in retirement. Knight, who worked on early neural network technology in Silicon Valley, now spends much of his time studying and writing about artificial intelligence and its societal implications.
"We were doing the first neural network chips," Knight said. "Even then, people understood where it could lead. The technology has advanced exactly the way many of us expected."
When he's not learning and opining about the impacts of AI on society, Knight spends his time by "growing vegetables and pounding nails," and keeping up with his wife, Annie Knight, an artist and competitive shooter.
Knight, who previously wrote and published several technical books, began writing the memoir in 2025, initially intending to preserve family stories for future generations. Eventually he realized that the book could have mass appeal due to its humor.
"I'd really like (people who read the book) to feel better about themselves - count their accomplishments, no matter what size they are, and feel good about them," he said. "I would hope they walk away from the book saying, 'It was funny and it made me feel good.'"
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