Your Tech Story

Founder

voicemail

Gordon Matthews : The American Inventor Who Invented the Voicemail

Leave a Comment / Founder, Product, start-up, Story, Tech Story / By

Some inventions have become such an integral part of our lives that we cannot imagine our lives otherwise. One can even go to the extent and say that we have almost taken such services for granted. The biggest such example is a subtle yet impactful invention- the Voicemail. This telephone service has been a part of our life for a very long time. It is almost impossible for us to imagine our mundane lives complete without this. But the voicemail is the result of sheer hard work and novelty. Gordon Mathews, the inventor of Voicemail, teaches us some of the most important lessons of life as we unfold the story of how a normal man went on to become the visionary who changed the way people communicate.

The Beginning

Gordon completed his graduation in engineering science from the University of Tulsa in the year 1959. Soon after his graduation, Gordon joined the U.S Marine Corps, and this life decision laid the first foundation stone for Voicemail. We can all agree on the fact that there comes a day in everyone’s life when they have the make it or the break it moment. For Gordon Mathews, this time was when he witnessed the accident of his fellow pilot.

A part of him believed that he had a role to play in it. Soon after he was discharged from the U.S Marine, Gordon went on to join IBM and contributed hugely in developing voice-activated cockpit controls that would play a major role in decreasing air catastrophes such as his friend’s. The incident managed to influence and affected him in such a way that the man decided to dedicate the rest of his career trying to find a solution for such problems in transmitting information between people.

Gordon Matthews
Image Source: ithistory.org

There are a lot of stories that revolve around how Mr Mathews invented Voicemail. The most famous and widely accepted one among them is of his travel to his office in Dallas on a rainy day. On his way to the office, Gordon noticed a trash-filled with pink slips full of while-you-were-out messages and other important information. This sparked an idea in him, and later, led to the invention of the Voicemail.

Gordon once said that if he sees anything that irritates him, he tries to fix it. This was exactly what happened with Voicemail. At the time of his invention, there was already the existence of a simple home answering machine that could only store messages. It uses an ordinary typewriter to do its function. The system found by Gordon did so much more than just record and save messages, i.e., send, forward, receive, store and even erase messages.

VMX

With the rocketing success of voicemail, Gordon started his very own company called ECS Telecommunications, which later on went on to be known as VMX. Soon enough, he received a patent for his invention of Voicemail and sold his first system to 3M (Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company). It is believed that his wife Monica was the one to send the first commercial voice message over it.

Later on, Mr Mathews went on to sell major shares of his company to huge firms such as 3M, Intel, Hoffman La Roche and Zenith Data Systems. But later in the year 1988, VMX went into the verge of a major bankruptcy and was soon acquired by a firm named Opcom. This firm was in turn obtained by Octel communications which were then, the largest provider of voicemail services and equipment across the world.

The Legacy

The legacy that Gordon Mathews left behind is huge. He is someone who believed that he could make the world a better place and actually went on to do the same. Even though he did not have much of a success story to tell as a businessman, everyone has a lot to learn from Gordo, as an inventor. The world is always in dire need of new inventions and people like Gordon Mathews, who indeed makes a huge difference in how we perceive the world.

Instacart

Apoorva Mehta : The Founder of Instacart, the ‘Uber of Grocery’

Leave a Comment / Founder, Inspiration, Product, start-up, Story, Tech Story / By

The internet and the rise of the tech giants like Google, Microsoft and Amazon have inspired a lot of people out there to start their own innovative business. And there is much evidence that the inspiration has worked for numerous people. The Internet has helped people to get idea from their daily needs and transform it into a successfully functioning business. One such person, who was inspired by the success of the big tech companies, is Apoorva Mehta, the founder of Instacart. Mehta was awed by the fact that how the new startups were getting success overnight. And hence, after trying out over 20 business ideas, he finally started Instacart.

Early Life and Career

Mehta belongs to the Indian descent, but was born and brought up in Canada. He had always been inclined towards the internet and technology. He had also been interested in learning science and computer programming. After completing his school education, Mehta joined the University of Waterloo, to complete an electrical engineering degree.

After completing his graduation, Mehta worked for companies like Qualcomm and BlackBerry. Though he had got good jobs, he was a bit confused about what he really wanted to do. Later, in 2008, Mehta moved to Seattle, to work with Amazon. He joined Amazon as the supply chain engineer. But, here too, he could not feel the passion for work and left the company after two years, in 2010.

The Inspiration for Startup

Apoorva Mehta Instacart
Image Source: celebritynetworth.com

With the rise of the tech companies, he had already developed an interest in entrepreneurship, so Mehta started looking for ‘the’ idea, that would help him establish a successful business. It took him over two years and 20 failed startup ideas to finally reach to Instacart. Before Instacart, Mehta tried to build an ad network for the gaming com to developing a social network for lawyers. But nothing worked for him.

After brainstorming for two long years and testing out those twenty startup ideas, Apoorva Mehta stopped and analysed, what he was doing wrong. He even thought of quitting, as none of his ideas had worked out. But persistence is the key. This time, he decided to work with passion and patience. He also realized that a business is successful when it solves a problem. So, he started looking for a problem that he could solve. Ultimately, he got an idea of developing an online grocery delivery service, which came out straight from his own pain point.

While working at Amazon, Apoorva Mehta was unable to find time to go for grocery shopping. He could order anything online, but there were no grocery delivering services. He found an opportunity in the problem and started working to solve it.

Finding the Investors

Mehta developed the app for his new startup ‘Instacart’ and started looking for investors. He tried to get into the Y Combinator tech incubator 2012, but the summer intake was already closed. So he had to take the other way around. He met a few of the partners of Y Combinator to request them to provide him entry into the incubator. But no one agreed. He met the last partner, who did not reject him, but said that the startup idea was nearly impossible.

Apoorva Mehta came back empty-handed but sent a pack of beer to that last partner through his app. This act made that partner think of this idea again, and he convinced the other Y Combinator partners to open the entry for Mehta. And this way, the doors of success were also opened for Mehta and his startup. Finally, he launched the company in 2012, in San Francisco.

The Rise of Instacart

In two years from its inception, the company gained a $40 million and spread to 17 different locations within the U.S. and Canada. The company was named as the ‘Most Promising Company in America’ by Forbes in 2015, and even, valued at $2 billion just in three years.

In 2016, the company went to expand in the North Chicago Zone, and the next year, the company was serving in 1,200 cities in 25 states. By the end of the year, the company partnered with Loblaw Companies for deliveries. The company raised a total of $400 million investment and valued at $3.4 billion.

In 2018, Instacart partnered with companies like Walmart Canada, HyVee, The Fresh Market, Harps, Lunds & Byerlys. It even acquired a Canada-based grocer named Unata. After raising a $200 investment in February 2018, the company raised another $600 million funding in October the same year and valued at $7.6 billion.

Mehta’s startup idea was unique and became successful within a year of its inception. And today, it is among the unicorn companies. The reason behind the success of Instacart is that it was different from the other businesses. It won’t be wrong if we call Instacart the Uber of grocery, as there was no warehouse to store the grocery and no official vans were bought to do the deliveries. In fact, the grocery came directly from the retailers, and the company hired people with their vehicles to do the deliveries. Both Instacart and the retailer are in benefit, and there is no spending of money on the physical cost resources.

CMOS image sensor

Eric Fossum : The Inventor of Active Pixel Sensor

Leave a Comment / Founder, Inspiration, Product, Story, Tech Story / By

Due to the high demand for mobile phones and digital camera, the production and development of image sensors have become an integral part of existing technology. And, among all the image sensors developed till date, active-pixel sensor (APS) is the widely used one, especially CMOS (complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor) APS. These image sensors are extensively used in smartphone cameras, digital pocket cameras, digital single-lens reflex cameras, and probably, in every other present-day camera you can name.

The history of these image sensors goes back to 1985 when Tsutomu Nakamura started working on the charge modulation device active pixel sensor. But it was Eric Fossum, who brought a giant wave of development in this field. So, next time you take out that pocket camera to take photographs, it’s Fossum you should be thankful for.

Early Life and Education of Eric Fossum

Born into a family in Simsbury, Connecticut, Fossum went to a local public school. From a very tender age, he developed an interest in science and engineering. So he spent the Saturdays at Talcott Mountain Science Center in Avon CT. In 1979, he graduated from Trinity College with a B.S in physics and engineering, followed by receiving his PhD in electrical engineering, in 1984 from Yale University.

Fossum’s Academic Career, Research and Invention

eric fossum
Image Source: yale.edu

After receiving his PhD, Fossum joined Columbia University as a professor in 1984. During his time at the university, he, along with his students, researched on CCD (charge-coupled device) focal-plane image processing and high-speed III-C CCDs. In 1990, Fossum joined the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California Institute of Technology and continued his research on the image sensor field. There he developed a modified version of the image sensor with intra-pixel charge transfer and un-pixel amplifier with more modifications and additional features. While he was working in the laboratory, Daniel Goldin, the then NASA-Administrator, wanted something faster, better and cheaper for the space missions. This led Eric Fossum to come up with CMOS APS, which today is incorporated in phone cameras, DSLRs, medical equipment, and automotive safety systems, etc.

According to Fossum, the growth in technology during the early 1990s was at a very slow rate, which led him to establish Photo bit Corporation along with his then-wife, Sabrina Kemeny, to develop and commercialize APS technology at a faster rate. In 1996, he joined the board as chairman and also as the chief scientist. In 2000, Fossum became the CEO of the company, which after a year came under the acquisition of Micron Technology. Even after the acquisition, he remained the part of the company and was named a Senior Micron Fellow. But in 2003, Fossum left Micron. In 2005, he joined at SiWave Inc. as the CEO and worked with the company for two years.

Eric Fossum, in 1986, founded the IEEE workshop on CCDS, which was later renamed as International Image Sensor Workshop.

He also had a sheer interest in robotics, and hence, he partially sponsored the Trinity College Fire-Fighting Robot Contest in 2007. In 2010, Fossum joined the Thayer School of Engineering to teach and conduct research on Quanta Image Sensor and also to coordinate the PhD Innovation Program.

Achievements

Throughout Fossum’s academic career, he had been a recipient of ample of awards. His was in 1984, which was the Yale’s Becton Prize. In the same year, he was honoured with the IBM Faculty Development Award. He also received the National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator Award in 1986, and within the next decade, he bagged NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal. And, this is just a mere preview of his glorious achievements.

Recently, in 2017, Fossum was honoured with Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering, which is probably the biggest prize for an engineer. It’s a cash prize of £1 million, generally given to the engineers for inventing something which is globally beneficial.

Life after Retirement

Fossum founded Photobit in 1996 followed by another company Siimple within few years. But, he stepped down from every position, and finally, retired from his business life in 2010. He then moved to New Hampshire.

He was quite happy with his decision to leave his entrepreneurial life because he decided to embrace the retired life and pursue teaching. And thus, he joined Thayer School of Engineering to stay active in the journey of innovation and contribute to the technology as far as he can.

sql

The Story of two Genius Scientists Behind SQL

Leave a Comment / Founder, Product, start-up, Story, Tech Story / By

Donald D. Chamberlin and Raymond F. Boyce are the original developers of the SQL Server, a product for storing and managing data. Both of them started working on it in the 1970s, and the first version of the software was released in 1974. SQL (Structured Query Language) was built as a domain-specific language to be used for accessing and manipulating data, data query and much more.

Apart from SQL, Chamberlin and Boyce are well known for their contribution in XQuery and Boyce-Codd normal form respectively.

Donald D. Chamberlin

Born in 1944 in San Jose, California, Chamberlin attended Campbell High School. He pursued electrical engineering in Harvey Mud College and later, completed his master’s as well as a PhD degree from the Stanford University. While he was in his college, he managed to land an internship in IBM Research in New York, and it is the same place where he started working after his PhD.

donald d chamberlin sql
Image Source: computerhistory.org

In the 1960s, at the time Chamberlin was in college, Computers were merely reachable by commoners. In fact, at that time, Harvey Mud College also had only a single computer, an IBM 1620. Chamberlin got lucky to have access to the computer and managed to write a program for tic-tac-toe for a human player on a keyboard.

During this time, two significant figures, Charlie Bachman and Ted Codd, were making exceptional contributions to the database management system. When Chamberlin joined IBM, one of IBM’s main concerns was to launch an efficient optimizing compiler for Codd’s Relational Model of data. Chamberlin was a part of the group working for the prototype, and hence, he was sent to CA, where he met Raymond F. Boyce.

Raymond F. Boyce

Boyce was born in 1947 and grew up in New York. He graduated from Providence College in 1968 and received his PhD from Purdue University in 1972. After receiving his doctorate, he also joined IBM and worked on database projects. Shortly, he came up with Boyce-Codd normal form in collaboration with Todd and was later sent to CA to work on the optimizing compiler.

And, when he met Chamberlin in CA, both of them set their course to develop SQL.

The Idea of SEQUEL

Raymond F Boyce Sql
Image Source: alchetron.com

SEQUEL stands for Structured English Query English which is one of IBM’s original database management systems.

While they were working on Codd’s relational ideas, they found one major drawback that made this relational model look very complicated. Since Codd was a mathematician, he explained everything with reference to the Cartesian plane and used many complex mathematical symbols and relations to elaborate his models. Since they were working to improve the data management system, both Chamberlin and Boyce thought of coming up with a language that would simplify the complexity of his models because Codd’s ideas were undoubtedly too strong. So, both of them started working on writing a language and named it SEQUEL for everyone (non-mathematicians) to use it using simple terminologies.

When they came up with SEQUEL, IBM didn’t have any product plan based on this language, so the company suggested them to produce the paper at a technical conference in Ann Arbor. Boyce went to the conference and realized that the relational database system (RDBMS) is truly the future of database management in every field. Soon after Ray returned from the conference, he died of a brain aneurysm.

Success of SEQUEL

IBM lost one of its greatest computer scientists, and Chamberlin, unfortunately, lost his partner. But, this didn’t hinder the growth and exposure of SEQUEL. Once the paper was released, IBM started working on testing the usefulness of the language in the practical world. They started building prototypes of the product (system R prototypes) based on this language. A team of 12 IBM programmers was made to work on this system R.

Products like System/38, SQL/DS and DB2 were commercially available during the late 1970s and early 1980s. After SEQUEL started launching commercial products, the shorter version of the commercial name became SQL.

During the early 1980s, the prices of computers fall unexpectedly, thus, allowing every organization to shift their paper records to a computer database. This led to the growth of database management systems, having a grip on the market and opening a vast source of profit for SQL.

Oracle also started making SQL database systems for the U.S government and sold them successfully. The language becomes so easy and efficient to command that the government launched FIPS 127, a federal database system that used SQL.

By 1986, both ANSI and ISO accepted SQL as the database language, and since then, new versions of it have been popping up into our systems.

caviar

Jason Wang : The ‘$10 to $90M’ Journey of a Passionate Entrepreneur

Leave a Comment / Founder, Product, Story, Tech Story / By

Entrepreneurship has always been a term that possibly the three-fourth of the world population look forward to. There are rarely any people who are happy with the idea of the 9 to 5 job. Every person must have thought about starting up their own business and being their own boss at least once in their lifetime. And it is fair too, as working for oneself and doing the work out of passion is what makes everyone successful. One such person, who was always in the favour of becoming his own boss is Jason Wang, an American serial-entrepreneur, who founded the food delivery service Caviar.

Jason Wang belongs to the Japanese descendent and graduated from Berkely University. He was still in school when he started his first business, i.e., an anime website, which served a total of 30,000 unique visitors every month. He received $1 for every ten visitors through ads, and hence, was earning $30 a day. But soon, the creators of Cardcaptor seized the domain name of his website, and his first business came to an end.

After graduating from the University of California, Berkeley, (Haas School of Business), he worked with big-name companies, including Google and Microsoft. Though he had a good salary package and had a stable job, he was still dreaming of building his business. So finally, after leaving his corporate job, he founded a mobile app development company, 815 Productions, in 2010. With his company, he developed an app that extracted data from Craigslist. Though the app was quite useful, the venture also got shut in a few months. But still, he remained to be encouraged to do something big and on his own. He kept on thinking of new ideas that would be a kick-starter for his entrepreneurship.

Jason Wang Caviar
Image Source: bizjournals.com

During the same time, Groupon was taking over the world with its amazing deals. He was impressed by how the company was establishing itself in no time. Seeing the growth of the company, Jason was forced to look at the business model of Groupon, upon which he found out that most of the people were going for the food deals on the platform. This led him to think of a similar coupon business that only would provide deals in food items.

Jason concluded that it would be better to target the university students to get more customers in one place without investing in ads. So he launched MunchOnMe for the Berkeley University students first. At the same time, Paul Graham from Y Combinator came to the university for his keynote and asked the students to apply for the accelerator program at Y Combinator.

Jason Wang had already registered 3000 users to MunchOnMe and applied to Y Combinator with the same idea. He made it to Y Combinator for its summer batch. It was a life-changing experience for him, as he got to listen to the big tech entrepreneurs and learn more about the business. He also received an $18000 seed funding for MunchOnMe.

After launching MunchOnMe officially for the general public, Jason realised that the business was good, but could not sustain for a longer time. So after operating it for a few months, he decided to sell the company. While selling the company, he made it clear to the buyers that he won’t be a part of the company and will lose every right over it.

The money he earned from the company’s acquisition helped him and his teammates to survive for a year and a half. But after that, he ran out of money. According to an interview with Jason Wang, there was a time when he had only $10 in his business account. But fortunately, the place he was renting had enough space to make room for new tenants, and he rented half of the place for $600.

While working in his office in San Francisco, he and his teammates felt the craving for Ike Place’s sandwiches, but the restaurant was on a distance of 45 minutes. So it would take them to go and come back from the restaurant a total of one and a half hours plus one hour of standing in the long queue at the restaurant. They called the restaurant for delivery, but they did not have the service available at that time. This was the year 2012, even before Uber. So there were no resources that could help Jason and his teammates to get the sandwich in time.

This incident made Jason think of a delivery service that would help people to get the desired food at their doorsteps. This led to the launch of Caviar.

Jason started working on the idea and partnered with three restaurants, i.e., Ikes Place, HRD and Nick’s Cripsy Tacos. The idea was to get people what they wanted to eat, delivered at their doorsteps. And, initially, Jason and his team would deliver the food by themselves. It was easier for him to get new customers as he talked about the idea with his friends from the University, Office, and also from Y Combinator. In the beginning, they would deliver on the lunchtimes and only on the weekdays. But soon, the company started gaining more customers and partnered with more restaurants. This way, Caviar gained most of its users within the six months of its launch and became popular among the masses.

The company had a kickstart, and in two years, it raised more than a $13 million from the investors. Jason did not have a long journey with Caviar, but it was the most successful business of his life. He sold the company to Square in 2014 for a rumoured $90 million.

Though Jason Wang sold his company, he is still active as a growing entrepreneur and has made a few investments in different ventures. Alongside Caviar, he also launched a few restaurants and also co-owns a hospitality group called Umai. He is also the founding partner of Beluga Capital, the venture that helps the tech startups with funding. He is a big food lover and also founded a food blog named Cityfoodsters. Jason also got his name listed under the Forbes 30 Under 30 in 2015.

Marshall Amplification

Jim Marshall : The Guitar Amp Pioneer and the ‘Father of Loud’

Leave a Comment / Founder, Product, start-up, Story, Tech Story / By

From a drummer to one of the most successful entrepreneurs and the inventer of the amplification system, the life journey of Jim aka James Charles Marshall has been quite an interesting one. Jim Marshall is the founder of the famous Marshall Amplification, a company that designs and manufactures music amplifiers and the other music-related products, including speakers cabinets, headphones, and earphones, etc. The company is also known for manufacturing customised products for its customers and is one of the biggest brands in the music industry.

Early Life & Career

Jim Marshal was born in a family of musicians and boxers settled in Acton, London, United Kingdom, on 29 July 1923. Being a part of a musical family, he got naturally inclined towards music. When he was a little kid, he got diagnosed with tubercular bones. So he had to spend most of his childhood in the hospital. At the time he grew a little older, the second world war took place. He also tried his luck in the army but was rejected due to his poor health condition.

Despite missing his school education, Marshall was able to get a day-time job as an electrical engineer at a small firm. He also worked part-time in the evening as a singer as well as a drummer. As an electrical engineer, he got to gain a lot of experience and designed and built a portable amplification system that he brought to his workplace in the evening. This was the first time when he built an amplification system by himself.

Jim Marshall
Image Source: allaboutbluesmusic.com

Soon in 1942, he joined a band as the lead drummer. At the same time, he started teaching music to people. Those people include some of the famous names of the music industry, including Mitch Mitchell and Micky Waller.

Career as an Entrepreneur

Through working with the band and the music classes, he was able to save enough money to start a music store in Hanwell, west London. Initially, he sold drums in the store and soon, on the request of many guitarists, he stocked guitars and their amplification system in the store. While selling those guitars and their amps, he often got to hear that these guitars were not producing the desired sound for them, not even with the amps. The customer wanted something bigger and louder. The customers had to buy different amps for different sounds. So on the suggestion of Ken Bran, the amp repairer, Marshall thought of building a single amplification system for all.

The Turning Point

Marshall started working on a new amplification system, along with his team, that included Ken Bran and the other worker at the store, Dudley Craven. Within a total of six attempts, using a Fender Bassman, Jim Marshall developed the first prototype of the Marshall Amplification in 1962. He named the system as JTM45. JTM is the acronym for Jim and Terry Marshall (Jim’s son).

The new Marshall Amplification became an instant hit and offered people with the sound they were seeking for. Soon the sales, as well as the products in the range of amplification, increased.

One of the most significant product from Marshall Amplification is the Marshall stack. The Marshall stack was designed specifically on the request of Pete Townshend, who wanted a 100 Watt head and an 8×12 cabinet amp. But instead of an 8×12 cabinet, Jim Marshall suggested him a 4×12. But Pete directed him to build what he wanted initially. At last, he had to come back to Marshall so that he could cut the cabinet into half and make it a 4×12. And eventually, the famous 100 Watt Marshall stack was developed.

In 1981, Marshall came up with the Master Volume Marshall amps and the classic Marshall JCM800 split-channel amps. The Marshall store also started including speakers and other music equipment for sale.

The Life After Success

In 1984, Jim Marshall became the recipient of the “Queen’s Award for Export” by Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom for the extraordinary achievement of the Marshall Amplification.

Upon completing the 25 years of the company in 1987, it introduced a new Silver Jubilee series of amps, that included the 2555 (100-watt head) and the 2550 (50-watt head) models. The new models rendered the “semi-split channel” design, such that the user could set two different input gain levels through the same tone stack and master volume control.

In 1985, Marshall got his hands printed to the Rock and Roll Walk of Fame. Marshall also received an OBE honour from Buckingham Palace for his “services to the music industry and charity” in 2003.

Marshal participated in many charity works. When Marshall suffered from tuberculosis as a child, he was treated at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital in Stanmore, London. So after earning enough money, he donated a few million dollars to the same hospital.

Marshall had become the biggest name in the field of music through his invention. Today, Marshall Amplification is the first choice of every musician. In fact, in the 60s and 70s, the big-sized Marshall stack had become a status symbol for the musicians. Marshall died at the age of 88 on 5 April 2012. Today he is remembered as one of the four forefathers of rock music equipment and is often cited as the father of Loud.