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Caterina Fake : One of the Most Influential Women in Silicon Valley

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In the past more than 15 years, Flickr has been the best Photo and Video hosting platform across the world. It allows you to share and host your pictures online, becoming the most favourite photo sharing website among all. At a time there was nothing like Flickr and then the idea of creating it hit two cleaver minds; Caterina Fake and her ex-husband Stewart Butterfield. Caterina is among the Time’s Magazine’s 2006’s list of 100 Most Influential People and was awarded the Silicon Valley Forum’s Visionary Award (2018).

Early Life

Caterina Fake was born on 13 June 1969, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. As a child, she had a keen interest in poetry and classical music and was not allowed to watch TV. She became familiar with computers and the internet through her friends.

She went to Choate Rosemary Hall to pursue her high school and attended Vassar College to do her B.A. In English. Meanwhile, she was also an alumnus at Smith College.

Career

Even being an Arts student, her interest in computers and programming, led her to grab a job as the lead designer at one of the first web development companies, named as Organic Online. She worked on the first online ventures of many famous companies including McDonald’s, Nike, Levi’s, etc.

Caterina fake
Image Source: wikimedia.org

Caterina also operated as a research staff member of ‘Interval Research and in 1990, served as the Art Director at Salon.com, where she played a key role in creating an online community, social software, etc. In 1997, Caterina started working at Netscape, managing its community forum.

Founding Flickr and Rise as an Entrepreneur

In 2002, Caterina, along with Stewart Butterfield and Jason Classon, founded a company and, named it Ludicrop. Together, they created a Game Neverending, that they somehow, could not launch. Later, she started working on a new project named as Flickr with Stewart and, launched it on 10 February 2004. Soon after its launch, it became a hit and Yahoo acquired it in 2005 along with Ludicorp, paying an amount of $25 million. Later, Yahoo! added more features to Flickr, like social media integration, community open APIs, tagging, etc to enhance its functionality. In the same year, Caterina also joined Yahoo! as the head of a Technology Development group, Hack Yahoo! along with Brickhouse.

After leaving the job at Yahoo, on 13 June 2008, Caterina started working on a new project named as Hunch, which she co-founded with an entrepreneur Chris Dixon, in June 2009. The website was acquired by eBay in 2011 paying $80 million. In 2012, Fake launched a website named Pinwheel later renamed to Findery, which is her latest venture.

Caterina won Business Week’s Best Leader of 2005, followed by Forbes 2005 eGang and Red Herring’s 20 Entrepreneurs under 35 awards (2005). In 2006, she appeared on the cover of Newsweek magazine. She has also received two Doctorate degrees (Honors), one from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2009 and another from The New School 2013.

Caterina was a member of the board of directors of Creative Commons and for a time period, also invested in and chaired the Board of Etsy.

Personal Life

Caterina Fake was married to Stewart Butterfield the co-founder of Flickr and her business partner, for 7 years (2001-2007) and the two have a daughter together. Currently, she is living in San Fransisco, with her boyfriend Jaiku the co-founder of Jyri Engeström and their three children.

Steve Chen – Co-Founder of YouTube

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Young and enthusiastic minds always take their ideas to next level starting from scratch. Many of these revolutionary ideas have led to innovations that have changed the way our world is connected. Now you can be connected to any part of the world in just a few clicks. You are also able to see what’s happening in the world, on the largest video streaming network – YouTube. The idea for this video streaming service was born into one such young mind of Steve Chen.

Early Life

Born on August 18, 1978, in Taipei, Taiwan, Steve Chen and his family immigrated to the United States of America, in 1993 and, got settled in Prospect Heights, Illinois. Chen took his middle school education from River Trails Middle School, which is situated in Mount Prospect. Then for the first year of high school, he went to John Hersey in Arlington Heights. He spent the next three years of high school at Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy in Aurora, Illinois. Finally, Chen went to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, to pursue a degree in Computer Science. and graduated in 2002.

Initial Career Stages

Just after graduating, Chen landed his first job with industry financial company PayPal. It was this company, where he met his future co-founders Jawed Karim and Chad Hurley. He also spent some time as an early employee at Facebook, but, left the company in few months to focus on his own venture.

Steve Chen
Image Source: wikimedia.org

He had a knack for innovative ideas and one such idea was lurking in his mind. It was to develop a video streaming platform, and Chen, along with Chad Hurley and Jawed Karim, founded YouTube in 2005. Steve took the position of Chief Technical Officer in the company.

Just within few months, Chen announced that YouTube was receiving around 100 million views per day and around 65000 videos were being uploaded from different parts of the world each day. The popularity of YouTube skyrocketed and quickly came to the notice of Google. Next thing they knew was Google offering to acquire YouTube. The online video streaming site was ranked among the top 10 most popular websites.

Google acquired YouTube in 2006 for a mind-boggling $1.65 billion. From then on, YouTube has never looked back and is constantly achieving new heights of success. Chen received 625,366 shares in Google and extra 68,721 in trust as the part of the sale. These shares are valued at $729 million in 2018.

After YouTube

Steve Chen is an energetic person who does not prefer to stop at one success. The definition of success is to keep moving forward and achieve greater heights than the previous ones. The next venture Chen started was named AVOS Systems, Inc. He founded this venture along with Chad Hurley and Vijay Krishnamurthy. One of the services known as Mixbit, which is a video sharing service is quite well known. AVOS acquired Delicious from Yahoo! Inc. The founders sold AVOS Systems, Inc. to Science, Inc. in 2014.

Along with founding a couple of most successful companies, Chen is also well-known for his investments in promising start-ups and businesses. He has invested in HonestBee, Drama Fever, Spool, Wish, Road Hero and many more.

Personal Life

In 2009, Chen got married to the Google Korea product marketing manager, Park Ji-Hyun also known as Jamie Chen. The couple lives in San Francisco with their two sons. Chen is a huge art admirer and makes a humble contribution towards The Asian Art Museum of San Francisco.

In 2008, Chen along with his partner Chad Hurley was awarded Vanguard Award. The Magazine 2.0 nominated Chen as one of the ’50 people who matter now’ in business. The Asian Scientists Magazine listed Chen as one of the 15 Asian Scientists to Watch.

Paul Buchheit – Creator and Lead Developer of Gmail

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There is no denying in the fact that each of us has used Gmail at least once in our lives and, that fact is proved by the current number of Gmail users, i.e., more than 900 million users. Gmail was launched in 2004, and the lead developer, behind this widely used email platform, is Paul Buchheit. Paul Buchheit is the 23rd employee of Google but, has played a pivotal role in the development of many Google products, in his few years of career with Google.

Paul Buchheit
Image Source: Facebook

Early Life

Paul Buchheit was born on 6 November 1976, in Webster, New York. He did his schooling from Webster Thomas High School. He was a brilliant student and always topped the class every year. Later, he entered Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio to pursue a degree in Science followed by a PhD (Honors) degree. During his college, he was in the rowing team of the college.

Career

As soon as Buchheit completed his education, he started his internship at Microsoft, in 1995. In 1998, he joined at Intel and after one year he became the 23rd employee at Google.

He worked with Google for nearly 7 years and, had become an influential part of Google’s numerous revolutionary programs, including Google Adsense. He also gave the suggestion of the motto, “Don’t Do Evil”, that was practised as the code of conduct within Google for many years.

In 2006, Paul Buchheit left the job at Google and launched a real-time social aggregator named FriendFeed which was a huge success. But later in 2009, it was acquired by Facebook through a private transaction. He also worked for Facebook for a few years and left the job in 2010, to start an investment company named Y Combinator.

Paul Buchheit always encourages startup companies saying that startups are more than simply a clever way to make money. Before Y Combinator, he had already invested in 83 startups through Angel Investment, and with Y Combinator he is supporting many budding companies with their startups.

Founding Gmail

Before Gmail was launched, the various email service providers, like Microsoft, had given a limited storage of 4 MB. According to Paul Buchheit, every email service was getting worse instead of getting better. And the lesser storage provided by every email platforms grabbed his attention. The planning of creating Gmail was started many years before it was announced. The development of Gmail started in 2001 and in 2004, Gmail was launched, with increased storage of 1000 MB of storage, fast dynamic interface, quick and accurate search including the concept of organised emails. Even Mr Doerr from Microsoft gave a statement that Gmail was like a wakeup call for them.

Personal Life

Paul married his girlfriend April Buchheit on 10 August 2002. Currently, he is living with his wife and two children in California.

Maurice Flanagan – The Founding CEO of Emirates

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Emirates, world’s number one airlines that have been consistent in maintaining their position on the top for past many years. It is known for providing the world’s best customer service. The company was founded in 1985, with just two aircraft that carried the passengers from and to Dubai, connected with other operators. Emirates is a subsidiary of the government of Dubai and had received $10 million as the startup capital from it. This money was used to lease their first two aircraft from Pakistan International Airlines, along with some technical and administrative support.

The Founder

The founder of Emirates, Maurice Flanagan, was born on 17th November 1928, in Leigh, Lancashire, England. He started his high school at the Leigh Boys Grammar School and then, was transferred to Lymm Grammar School as the World War II broke out.

After completing his high school, Flanagan went to Liverpool University to do his Bachelor’s in History and French and, performed his National Service in the Royal Air Force as a navigator commissioned officer. In November 1951, he received the rank of pilot officer, and in the March of 1954 Flanagan was promoted to the post of flying officer and served as the same, for two years.

Maurice Flanagon
Image Source: www.asiatraveltips.com

Flanagan wanted to become a professional football player. Blackburn Rovers showed an interest in nurturing Flanagan’s talent and take him towards his dream. But, unfortunately, during one evening outing, Flanagan suffered a knee injury that became the reason for his degrading football career.

As his athletic career came to an end, Flanagan started working as a management trainee, with the BOAC (British Overseas Airways Corporation) and worked in the parts of Kenya, Sri Lanka, India, UK, and Iran. Flanagan worked with BOAC for 25 years, before the launching of Emirates, in 1985. He also had a flair for writing and even won a TV playwriting competition in 1969, organized by a newspaper named Observer. Kenneth Tynan, an English theatre critic and writer, invited him to write for the National Theatre, but, Flanagan chose to go for an airline career as it seemed more secure.

The Dubai Government looked up to Flanagan’s years of experience in the airline industry and were impressed by his talent. So, they appointed him to launch the Emirates. The company was an immediate success, as it recovered all of its initial investment money just in the following year.

The Success Flight of Emirates

Emirates carried more than 260,000 passengers in the year of the launch itself and, promised to grow even further at a staggering rate. Just in the next year, the company launched its services to Southeast Asia and Egypt. And the next year, their expansion reached 11 destinations, with regular flight services. During the first decade, the company reported an average of 30% growth each year and, declared profits for seven years.

Currently, the company has the largest fleet of Boeing 777s, the biggest aircraft in the market, and Airbus A380. Emirates maintain an average age of each aeroplane to about 6.3 years and, is committed to sustaining that standard. Emirates flight services run for 142 destinations in 78 countries.

The central hub of the airline is located at one of the most beautiful airports in the world i.e. Dubai. Emirates are also popular and widespread in the South and Southeast Asia regions. In India itself, the Emirates serves to 9 Indian airports and is the most preferred airline among the businessmen. It’s in-flight, as well as ground services, are commendable. Even economy class passengers get top-class services including comfortable sitting and in-flight entertainment, etc..

Personal Life

Maurice Flanagan retired from executive vice chairman post on April 2013. In his 35 years of service, the airline witnessed staggering growth and profits. He was recognized as Personality of the Year by Flight International Magazine.

He married a journalist named Audrey Bolton in 1955 and gave birth to three children. He has five grandchildren. He died on 7th May 2015 at the age of 86 at his home in London.

Tony Hsieh – Co-Founder of the Online Shoe and Clothing Company Zappos

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For constant growth, one needs to take risks, from time to time. Getting into a new business, or changing a line of work, or anything that keeps your adrenaline rush at its peak as it will lead you to most fulfilling experiences. The success, of course, follows and, so does money. Entrepreneurs are known for their risk taking abilities and venturing into newer forays. Tony Hsieh, is one such figure, who has kept evolving his talent from time to time and has reached the topmost position in the corporate world.

Early Life

Tony Hsieh was born on 12 December 1973, in Illinois, US, to Richard and Judy Hsieh, who shifted from Taiwan to Illinois. He was brought up on the bay area of San Francisco with his two brothers, Andy Hsieh and Dave Hsieh.

He graduated in Computer Science from Harvard University, in 1995. While studying in Harvard, Tony managed the Quincy House Grille and, sold pizza to the students in his dorm. Here he met Alfred Lin, who was his best pizza customer and, a future colleague.

Career

Tony landed his first job with Oracle Corporation, soon after he graduated. But, just in half a year, he realized that the corporate environment was not meant for him and, left the job. Later he went on to set up LinkExchange – an advertising network – along with his college friend and ex-Oracle employee Sanjay Madan.

Tony Hsieh
Image Source: flickr.com

The central aim of LinkExchange was to advertise the sites of companies, interested in the company. Tony landed his first 30 clients, via e-mail and, just within three months, the site displayed ads of 20,000 web-pages. Members were allowed to advertise their site using banner ads on LinkExchange. The banner ads were displayed over 10 million times and, by 1998, the site registered 400,000 members and 5 million ad rotations daily. The company was sold to Microsoft for $265 million, in November 1998.

The next business Hsieh started was an incubator and investment firm, whose name was originated as a result of a dare. One of Tony’s friends said that she would invest everything, she has got, if they named the company ‘Venture Frogs’ and, thus, accepting the challenge, the company with the same name was born. Venture Frogs invested in several companies, like AskJeeves, OpenTable, and Zappos. The company did not witness huge profits but, led Tony to take interest in Zappos.

Founding Zappos

Nick Swinmurn, the person with the original idea of Zappos, approached Tony, in 1999, with the idea of selling shoes online. Hsieh wasn’t interested in the early days but, when Swinmurn mentioned that footwear business accounted to $40 billion in the US alone, of which 5% was sold by paper mail orders.

The figures struck Tony, and through Venture Frogs, he decided to invest in the business. He accepted the position of CEO of Zappos, investing $2 million, and in 1999 started ShoeSite.com. Tony enjoyed working in Zappos and set up an office in Venture Frogs premises itself. In 2000, the company received additional funding and generated about $1.6 million in revenue, and $8.6 million, in the next year.

In 2004, Sequoia Capital invested $35 million in Zappos as they saw the company made sales worth $184 million. In 2007, the company made sales worth $840 million and had expanded their products, in every sector, like kids, men’s, women shoes, etc. By this time, they had a dedicated headquarters situated in Henderson, Nevada.

The year 2009, was the most blooming for Zappos, as the company touched $1 billion in revenue. On July 22, 2009, Amazon acquired Zappos, for a whopping $1.2 billion, and Hsieh made about $214 million through this deal.

Later, Hsieh also joined JetSuite’s board in 2011 and closed a $7 million investment deal for the ‘very light’ jet project.

Personal Life

Tony Hsieh, apart from business, believes in sharing knowledge. Therefore, he wrote Delivering Happiness, which became an international bestseller. In the book, he explains the details of Zappos’ journey and achieving the feat of $1 billion, in less than a year. The book remained on top lists for 27 consecutive weeks.

Tony isn’t married and likes to party. He does not stay with his parents as they wanted him to be a doctor or a lawyer. Hsieh received Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 2007. He lives in Downtown Las Vegas, Nevada, and also has a home in Southern Highlands.

Analog Devices – American Multinational Semiconductor Company

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This century is highly technologically dominated one. Each aspect of our lives involves technology in one or other way in the form of various devices. These devices that are dominating our lives are made by combining small and tiny electronic parts such as semiconductors and ICs. Companies, like Analog Devices, thrive on the production of these small parts and, has become one of the largest American multinational semiconductor production company across the world.

History of Analog Devices Inc.

It was on 18th January 1965, that two MIT graduates, Ray Stata and Matthew Lorber, came up with an idea, to start a business focusing on manufacturing electronic devices. The company launched its first product the same year. It was a model 101 op amp device, used in test and measurement equipment. The size of this model was almost similar to a hockey puck. The company has become a leader, in the production of electronic equipment used in signal processing. Their equipment is widely used in defense, space research, communications, and various such sectors.

In 1967, the company launched its first issue of Analog Dialogue – a technical magazine which focuses on newest development in engineering across the globe.

Analog Devices went public in 1969 and filed an initial public offering. A decade later the company was listed on New Your Stock Exchange. The company now focused more on the research and development of its products. This included the launching of the first digital to analog device – CMOS and first laser trim wafers, in 1973.

Analog Devices
Image Source: www.flickr.com

During Stata’s CEO period, the company achieved humongous success in the market all over the world and in 1996, it reached $1 billion in revenue. The same year, Stata retired from the post of CEO and Jerald G. Fishman took over the President and CEO position, serving till 2013.

By 2000, ADI’s sales reached $2.5 billion. Analog Devices acquired five companies, including the thick film semiconductor manufacturing company, BCO Technologies, for a huge $150 million.

Fishman retired in 2013 and, was replaced by Vincent Roche as the new President and CEO. Executive Vice President Position is helmed by Rick D. Hees, Chief Technology Officer by Peter Real, and Director of Finance by David A. Zinser.

Products

The company started with, manufacturing analog signal processing and digital signal processing technologies, which include data converters, radio frequency, etc. Company’s main products include data converters used in fields, like medical systems, scientific instrumentation, radar, defense equipment, etc. Data converters account for more than 50% of ADI’s revenue.

Power management products are used in wireless, industrial, and digital camera manufacturing industries. Radio Frequency integrated circuits product portfolio includes TruPwr, RMS power detectors, etc.

Analog Devices’ most popular product micro-electromechanical systems (MEMs), which was found in smartphones, tablet PCs, security systems, etc., was sold to InvenSense in 2013.

The company has become a pivotal player in various fields including healthcare, automotive, industrial, and consumer-based markets. Its main competitors include Texas Instruments, Maxim Integrated Products, and Linear Technology. Analog Devices was ranked at number three analog semiconductor supplier in 2011.

Employees and Company Locations

As of 2016, around 10,000 employees work for Analog Devices. Each employee is given a health care benefit and, shares in the company stocks. The employees are also given the housing and transportation allowances.

The company’s headquarters is situated in Norwood, Massachusetts, United States and, its subsidiaries are situated all across the world in countries, such as Israel, India, China, etc. There are four regional headquarters situated in Tokyo, Munich, Shanghai, and Limerick.

To encourage new innovations and, start a conversation between engineers, the company launched ‘Engineer Zone’ – an online support platform. Analog Devices publishes about the latest technological advances in the engineering field, every month.

The company’s dedication, towards supplying top-quality products to its customers, has led to the rise in its stocks and, gain the trust of their thousands of customers.