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10 Tech Pioneers: Where Are They Now?
One of the rarest things in high tech is finding a major company that's still being run by the people who started it. Once you get past Bill Gates, Michael Dell, and Steve Jobs (part deux), the list gets pretty thin mighty fast.
In some cases, that's because the founders moved on, either voluntarily or otherwise. In others, it's because the company imploded, was acquired, or simply disappeared down the dot-com memory hole.
We tracked down some of the more noteworthy tech people (and a couple of inanimate objects) whose careers have taken interesting or unusual twists: the PC pioneer turned country doctor, the dot-com wunderkind who's now a budding movie mogul, and the would-be billionaire who chose a different path at a crucial moment.
Where are they now? Read on to find out.
Ed Roberts
1975: Founder of MITS, creator of the Altair 8800
Now: A country doctor
There are few people who can claim to have inspired Bill Gates, Paul Allen, Steve Wozniak, and Steve Jobs, but Ed Roberts is certainly one of them. As president of Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (MITS), Roberts oversaw the creation of the Altair 8800, considered by many to be the first personal computer.
The suitcase-size Altair boasted 256 bytes (or one-fourth of 1KB) of programmable memory and sold for around $400 unassembled. When the MITS machine appeared on the cover of Popular Electronics in January 1975, a generation of geeks was transfixed. (By some accounts, a Star Trek episode was the source of the device's moniker, but others say Popular Electronics editors named the gadget after a well-known star.)
Inspired by the Altair, a group of Silicon Valley techies formed the Homebrew Computing Club, which later gave birth to 23 high-tech companies, including Apple Computer. Roberts even hired Gates and Paul Allen to write BASIC programs for the Altair for $10 an hour. (They later went on to form a little company then called Micro-Soft.)
But few high-tech icons have undergone a career shift as abrupt as Roberts'. In 1977, at the age of 35, Roberts sold MITS for $6 million and enrolled in medical school. He's now a doctor in Cochran, Georgia, population 4755.
In an August 2001 interview with the New York Times, Roberts said he's never looked back after leaving the multibillion-dollar industry he helped create. ''I think I'm making a fairly substantial contribution here,'' he said. ''Maybe not to the wider world, but I think what I do now is important.''
Marc Collins-Rector
1996: Co-founder of Digital Entertainment Network
Now: At large in London
It's hard to find words to describe the career of this one-time dot-com exec, but "sordid" and "depraved" would be a good start.
In 1991 Collins-Rector founded ISP Concentric Networks with Chad Shackley, whom he met on an Internet bulletin board. Collins-Rector was 31 at the time; Shackley was just 16. In 1996, the pair joined with 18-year-old actor Brock Pierce to launch Digital Entertainment Network, an ambitious attempt to create an Internet-based TV network for 14-to-24-year-olds. Despite burning through more than $75 million in venture capital, the only people DEN entertained were its employees, who enjoyed generous salaries and legendary parties.
In October 1999, the trio resigned from DEN after Collins-Rector was sued for allegedly having sex with a minor. The trio fled to Marbella, Spain, where they were arrested two years later for possession of child porn. Meanwhile, Collins-Rector was sued in absentia by former teenage male employees who claimed they had been lured to his mansion, drugged, and sexually abused.
Extradited to the United States in June 2004, Collins-Rector pled guilty to transporting minors across state lines for sex and paid a small fine. According to reports in the November 2007 issue of Radar Magazine, Collins-Rector is in London and may be a silent partner in Internet Gaming Entertainment, a site operated by DEN founder Brock Pierce that sells virtual weaponry to gamers on EverQuest and World of Warcraft. (IGE did not respond to requests for comment.)
The Third Apple
Ron Wayne
1976: Co-founder of Apple Computer
Now: Semi-retired engineering consultant
Ron Wayne started out by designing slot machines in Vegas, but his unwillingness to gamble may have ended up costing him billions. Wayne is the oft-forgotten third founder of Apple Computer, who hooked up with Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs when he and Jobs worked for Atari in the mid-1970s. Older by more than a decade, Wayne was brought in to act as a tie-breaker when the two Steves disagreed.
But as the three-man partnership slid further into debt, Wayne began to get cold feet. He had already started and lost his own engineering firm--Siand Engineering, a Las Vegas-based maker of gaming machine technology--and didn't have the stomach for another roller coaster ride. In April 1976, Wayne asked the Steves to buy out his 10 percent share in Apple for $800. Afterward, Wayne worked for game companies and defense contractors, traded coins and stamps, and turned down several offers to return to Apple.
Now retired, the 73-year-old Wayne does consulting work, most recently building industrial models for cross-oceanic cabling equipment. In a phone interview, Wayne said he's one of a vanishing breed of engineers who did everything, from initial problem solving to drafting, model building, and final assembly.
"I want to be remembered as an anachronism, someone who did the whole thing from beginning to end instead of just one part of it," he says. But he'll likely be remembered for his short stint at Apple-- one of the few projects Wayne started but never finished.
"Socks"
1999: Mascot for Pets.com
Now: Pitch puppet
Some victims of the dot-com bust went to the dogs, but not Pets.com's famous sock puppet. After his masters imploded in the dot-com debacle, "Socks" was acquired by Hakan & Associates and 1-800 BarNone, a low-cost auto loan vendor, for $125,000. Since then he's starred in commercials for Bar None and been hired to endorse Hasbro toys and Rawhide Chews.
"We feel that Socks' story is something that many Americans can relate to," says BarNone President Grant Whitmore. "Our motto is that 'Everyone deserves a second chance.' Using Socks supports that notion."
Speaking through a spokeshuman, Socks says he is happy with the new gig. "Do I miss seeing myself as a giant balloon in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade? The crazy nights in Las Vegas with that Taco Bell Chihuahua? Yeah, sometimes," says Socks wistfully.
According to the company, Socks currently lives in the top drawer of a very nice dresser in suburban Washington, DC. When not working, he enjoys lip-syncing and knitting.
Dennis Hayes
1981: Inventor of the Hayes Smartmodem
Now: Advisor to startups
In the BB era (before broadband), if you wanted to connect to the Net, you used a Hayes modem or something just like it. The Hayes Smartmodem transformed the PC from a computing machine into a communications device, helping to create a multibillion dollar industry for Internet access. (It's also number 7 on PC World's 50 Best Tech Products of All Time.)
But like a lot of PC pioneers, Dennis Hayes caught more than his share of arrows. Competition from cheap modem clones ultimately doomed his firm, Hayes Microcomputer Products, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1994 and closed its doors for good in 1998. Hayes followed up by opening a popular nightclub in Atlanta called the Whiskey Rock Saloon. It burned down a year later. Along the way, Hayes developed macular degeneration and became legally blind.
Hayes became an advocate for Internet accessibility for the disabled. He helped create and still chairs the US Internet Industry Association (USIIA), which lobbies Congress on high-tech legislation. His most recent victory: an extension of the moratorium on Internet taxes. Now based in New York, Hayes advises high-tech startups and is launching an investment management firm.
The biggest difference from the old days, he says, is that his life now is much less predictable. "When I owned Hayes I knew where I would be working and what I would be working on," he says. "Now I never know when the phone will ring and I will be working on something totally different. I've come to appreciate how my actor and musician friends feel when they are looking for the next gig."
In some cases, that's because the founders moved on, either voluntarily or otherwise. In others, it's because the company imploded, was acquired, or simply disappeared down the dot-com memory hole.
We tracked down some of the more noteworthy tech people (and a couple of inanimate objects) whose careers have taken interesting or unusual twists: the PC pioneer turned country doctor, the dot-com wunderkind who's now a budding movie mogul, and the would-be billionaire who chose a different path at a crucial moment.
Where are they now? Read on to find out.
Ed Roberts
1975: Founder of MITS, creator of the Altair 8800
Now: A country doctor
There are few people who can claim to have inspired Bill Gates, Paul Allen, Steve Wozniak, and Steve Jobs, but Ed Roberts is certainly one of them. As president of Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (MITS), Roberts oversaw the creation of the Altair 8800, considered by many to be the first personal computer.
The suitcase-size Altair boasted 256 bytes (or one-fourth of 1KB) of programmable memory and sold for around $400 unassembled. When the MITS machine appeared on the cover of Popular Electronics in January 1975, a generation of geeks was transfixed. (By some accounts, a Star Trek episode was the source of the device's moniker, but others say Popular Electronics editors named the gadget after a well-known star.)
Inspired by the Altair, a group of Silicon Valley techies formed the Homebrew Computing Club, which later gave birth to 23 high-tech companies, including Apple Computer. Roberts even hired Gates and Paul Allen to write BASIC programs for the Altair for $10 an hour. (They later went on to form a little company then called Micro-Soft.)
But few high-tech icons have undergone a career shift as abrupt as Roberts'. In 1977, at the age of 35, Roberts sold MITS for $6 million and enrolled in medical school. He's now a doctor in Cochran, Georgia, population 4755.
In an August 2001 interview with the New York Times, Roberts said he's never looked back after leaving the multibillion-dollar industry he helped create. ''I think I'm making a fairly substantial contribution here,'' he said. ''Maybe not to the wider world, but I think what I do now is important.''
Marc Collins-Rector
1996: Co-founder of Digital Entertainment Network
Now: At large in London
It's hard to find words to describe the career of this one-time dot-com exec, but "sordid" and "depraved" would be a good start.
In 1991 Collins-Rector founded ISP Concentric Networks with Chad Shackley, whom he met on an Internet bulletin board. Collins-Rector was 31 at the time; Shackley was just 16. In 1996, the pair joined with 18-year-old actor Brock Pierce to launch Digital Entertainment Network, an ambitious attempt to create an Internet-based TV network for 14-to-24-year-olds. Despite burning through more than $75 million in venture capital, the only people DEN entertained were its employees, who enjoyed generous salaries and legendary parties.
In October 1999, the trio resigned from DEN after Collins-Rector was sued for allegedly having sex with a minor. The trio fled to Marbella, Spain, where they were arrested two years later for possession of child porn. Meanwhile, Collins-Rector was sued in absentia by former teenage male employees who claimed they had been lured to his mansion, drugged, and sexually abused.
Extradited to the United States in June 2004, Collins-Rector pled guilty to transporting minors across state lines for sex and paid a small fine. According to reports in the November 2007 issue of Radar Magazine, Collins-Rector is in London and may be a silent partner in Internet Gaming Entertainment, a site operated by DEN founder Brock Pierce that sells virtual weaponry to gamers on EverQuest and World of Warcraft. (IGE did not respond to requests for comment.)
The Third Apple
Ron Wayne
1976: Co-founder of Apple Computer
Now: Semi-retired engineering consultant
Ron Wayne started out by designing slot machines in Vegas, but his unwillingness to gamble may have ended up costing him billions. Wayne is the oft-forgotten third founder of Apple Computer, who hooked up with Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs when he and Jobs worked for Atari in the mid-1970s. Older by more than a decade, Wayne was brought in to act as a tie-breaker when the two Steves disagreed.
But as the three-man partnership slid further into debt, Wayne began to get cold feet. He had already started and lost his own engineering firm--Siand Engineering, a Las Vegas-based maker of gaming machine technology--and didn't have the stomach for another roller coaster ride. In April 1976, Wayne asked the Steves to buy out his 10 percent share in Apple for $800. Afterward, Wayne worked for game companies and defense contractors, traded coins and stamps, and turned down several offers to return to Apple.
Now retired, the 73-year-old Wayne does consulting work, most recently building industrial models for cross-oceanic cabling equipment. In a phone interview, Wayne said he's one of a vanishing breed of engineers who did everything, from initial problem solving to drafting, model building, and final assembly.
"I want to be remembered as an anachronism, someone who did the whole thing from beginning to end instead of just one part of it," he says. But he'll likely be remembered for his short stint at Apple-- one of the few projects Wayne started but never finished.
"Socks"
1999: Mascot for Pets.com
Now: Pitch puppet
Some victims of the dot-com bust went to the dogs, but not Pets.com's famous sock puppet. After his masters imploded in the dot-com debacle, "Socks" was acquired by Hakan & Associates and 1-800 BarNone, a low-cost auto loan vendor, for $125,000. Since then he's starred in commercials for Bar None and been hired to endorse Hasbro toys and Rawhide Chews.
"We feel that Socks' story is something that many Americans can relate to," says BarNone President Grant Whitmore. "Our motto is that 'Everyone deserves a second chance.' Using Socks supports that notion."
Speaking through a spokeshuman, Socks says he is happy with the new gig. "Do I miss seeing myself as a giant balloon in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade? The crazy nights in Las Vegas with that Taco Bell Chihuahua? Yeah, sometimes," says Socks wistfully.
According to the company, Socks currently lives in the top drawer of a very nice dresser in suburban Washington, DC. When not working, he enjoys lip-syncing and knitting.
Dennis Hayes
1981: Inventor of the Hayes Smartmodem
Now: Advisor to startups
In the BB era (before broadband), if you wanted to connect to the Net, you used a Hayes modem or something just like it. The Hayes Smartmodem transformed the PC from a computing machine into a communications device, helping to create a multibillion dollar industry for Internet access. (It's also number 7 on PC World's 50 Best Tech Products of All Time.)
But like a lot of PC pioneers, Dennis Hayes caught more than his share of arrows. Competition from cheap modem clones ultimately doomed his firm, Hayes Microcomputer Products, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1994 and closed its doors for good in 1998. Hayes followed up by opening a popular nightclub in Atlanta called the Whiskey Rock Saloon. It burned down a year later. Along the way, Hayes developed macular degeneration and became legally blind.
Hayes became an advocate for Internet accessibility for the disabled. He helped create and still chairs the US Internet Industry Association (USIIA), which lobbies Congress on high-tech legislation. His most recent victory: an extension of the moratorium on Internet taxes. Now based in New York, Hayes advises high-tech startups and is launching an investment management firm.
The biggest difference from the old days, he says, is that his life now is much less predictable. "When I owned Hayes I knew where I would be working and what I would be working on," he says. "Now I never know when the phone will ring and I will be working on something totally different. I've come to appreciate how my actor and musician friends feel when they are looking for the next gig."
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