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Curated playlist

American businesspeople in the computer industry

  • MC HammerMC Hammer started out as an 11-year-old selling baseballs in a parking lot. The Oakland A's owner hired him on the spot.
  • Bill GatesBill Gates and Paul Allen wrote software for a computer they did not have. Their Altair demo worked the first time.
  • Eric SchmidtEric Schmidt ran Google while taking a base salary of just $1 a year. That pay lasted from 2004 through 2010.
  • Larry PageLarry Page, the co-founder of Google, once held a cheque for $100,000 that was made out to a company that did not exist. Andy Bechtolsheim, a co-founder of Sun Microsystems, wrote it to "Google, Inc." before anyone had filed the…
  • Sergey BrinSergey Brin, co-founder of Google, helped build a search tool that grew faster than its makers expected. His partner Larry Page later recalled the moment the project began to feel real: "Pretty soon, we had 10,000 searches a day. And we…
  • Steve JobsSteve Jobs died on the 5th of October 2011, and he had arranged one last gesture for the people who came to remember him. At the memorial held at Stanford University, every guest received a small brown box as a farewell gift from him.…
  • Larry SangerLarry Sanger is an American philosopher who helped start Wikipedia, and in April 2007 he announced that the site had become broken beyond repair. Few founders speak that way about their own creation. Sanger spent his early career on…
  • Sam Bankman-FriedSam Bankman-Fried played League of Legends while pitching investors. Sequoia later put in more than $200 million.
  • Satya NadellaOn the 4th of February 2014, Microsoft announced that Satya Nadella would become its chief executive. He was the third person to hold that job, following Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer. The choice put a Hyderabad-born engineer at the head of…
  • Russell SimmonsRussell Simmons said a 1977 Harlem rap show was "the invention of the wheel." He went on to build Def Jam and Phat Farm.
  • Andrew NgA neural network taught itself to recognize cats from YouTube videos. Andrew Ng cofounded Google Brain.
  • Jensen HuangJensen Huang founded Nvidia in a Denny's booth, where he once worked as a dishwasher. Three engineers pooled $600.
  • Alexis OhanianAlexis Ohanian has a plaque in his honor at Booth 19 of a Waffle House in Charlottesville, Virginia. It reads: "Site of Alexis Ohanian's Waffle House Epiphany." A division manager named Derick Moore had it installed to mark the moment.…
  • Steve WozniakSteve Wozniak, nicknamed Woz, built his first computer in June 1971. A newspaper reporter destroyed it by stepping on the power supply cable. He had built the machine with his friend Bill Fernandez as a self-taught engineering project. It…
  • Mark CubanIn 2002, Mark Cuban told the world that the NBA's manager of officials, Ed T. Rush, "wouldn't be able to manage a Dairy Queen." The restaurant chain took offense. Its management answered with an invitation to prove the point. Cuban…

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