INQUIRER Top Ten IT Characters
Remember when people had personalities?
"I AM BIG." It’s the pictures that got small.” So says Gloria Swanson as Norma Desmond in Billy Wilder’s greatest movie, Sunset Boulevard, and sometimes you could be forgiven for feeling like that about the tech industry. There are lots of bright people but what happened to the big talkers, the drinkers, the egos, the maniacs, the bulls, the legends in their own lifetimes, the monsters, the big swinging dicks? The ones who, to quote poetry, leave the vivid air signed with their honour, the truly great.
Here are 10 that fit the category but notice how they’re nearly all of a certain age. Am I being reverse-ageist? Who do you think are the latest men and women who want it all, will trample the world to get it, and only stop talking to sleep, and sometimes not even then?
10. Philippe Kahn. The Web 2.0 crowd might not know the name but Kahn was the loudest man in software in the early 90s. Large and often to be found recording jazz music with his band, Kahn propelled Borland to fame but maybe overreached by buying Ashton-Tate and pursuing a former employee with legal challenges when he defected to Symantec. He went on to help invent the camera-phone and sail yachts.
9. Steve Ballmer. With his Marty Feldman eyes, famously indecipherable email messages and tendency to jump around on stages while shrieking with laughter and shouting, it would surprise many outsiders to learn that Uncle Vista happens to run the world’s most successful software firm.
9. Jamie Minotto. Legendary among UK hacks in the 1980s, the one-time Tandon MD was a walking quote machine in snakeskin boots. He was also a good mountain biker, but was the story about the movie true?
8. Mark Eppley. Flame-haired and with a personality to match, the former Traveling Software CEO is best known for giving the world Laplink but within the industry he was better known for outrageous parties that included him taking a flamethrower to an ice statue. A former American football player, he once climbed a mountain to demo a product. Interviews with Eppley often took place with music playing in the background and no shortage of sustenance. He’s still organising parties for interesting people now - complete with live rock bands.
7. Mike Tobin. The Telecity CEO once dressed as Father Christmas to deliver presents to children of his staff. He claims to have had a hit record in Norway and to be an excellent chef as well as a member of the Magic Circle. As far as one can tell, he knows everyone or at least knows a man who does.
6. Dennis C. Hayes. A charmer from Atlanta, Hayes invented the dial-up modem, saw his company go through an enormous boom, invested in great art, divorced her at huge cost and then saw his eponymous company wither away. He went on to buy a music bar that burned down.
5. Marc Benioff. The Salesforce.com CEO learned at the feet or Larry Ellison and has perfectly captured the ability to talk up his company while lashing the opposition with withering wit. Salesforce conferences include the likes of Colin Powell and George Lucas, while Stevie Wonder was hired to perform at his wedding. Benioff can turn on the charm but is no pushover as the Wall Street Journal discovered when the bear-like Benioff was angered by what he regarded as snooping on his home on Hawaii.
4. Jerry Sanders. The AMD founder’s fabulous suits, cars and wristwatches were flash but as nothing compared to his brilliance with words. Who else but Sanders would quote poetry to celebrate the right to reverse engineer the 386 processor, or declare that a man’s salary is his report card in life?
3. Scott McNealy. With teeth so prominent and impressively white, it’s a wonder that McNealy could manage to break the world record for fast talking. When not carrying the flag for Unix, Steely McNealy developed an all-enveloping contempt for Microsoft and perhaps the best golf game and ice hockey skills in the business. He famously hugged a penguin to show Sun was warming to Linux and named his children in the manner of David Bowie, dubbing them Maverick, Dakota, Colt and Scout.
2. Larry Ellison. Crazy, but that’s how it goes when your riches make Croesus weep. Not satisfied with building the biggest software company in Silicon Valley, Lal has had a controlling stake in on-demand ERP outfit NetSuite and storage firm Pillar Data. He has also had more than his fair share of wives and, those trinkets of fabulous wealth, fighter jets, yachts, cars and a Japanese-style home in swanky Woodside, where even the bin men wear Rolex Oysters. Having been born in New York, he moved to Chicago at the tender age of nine months and sometimes seems to epitomise the power, confidence and aggressive nature of those fine cities. Not too interested in pussyfooting around, Ellison made it known that he might buy BEA years before clinching the deal, and spouted enough FUD to cause a short-term fissure in Red Hat’s stock value. Hair-raising stories about him abound but can you write them – we don’t think we could match his lawyers’ prices. And anyway, he’s a luminous character in a business filled with grey guys.
1. Al Shugart. With his penchant for Hawaiian shirts and shorts, you can’t imagine the late Seagate founder running a company today. Born in LA, Shugart could have claimed to be the most important man in the hard drive business but he was much more than that. No friend of politicians, Shugart tried to get his dog elected to Congress and wrote a book about it called Ernest Goes To Washington. He also tried to make it possible to vote “none of the above” and wrote another book about running a restaurant. A journalist who interviewed him was surprised when Shugart took off his shoes, put them on the table and ordered his driver to fetch burgers from McDonalds. ยต
No comments:
Post a Comment