Brilliant Tech Visionaries #4

from Fortune 500 magazine 2012 enhanced by Peter@ Wiz4.biz 4/13

ORACLE billionaire Larry Ellison, (co-founder & chairman ), has helped create the first commercial database to use SQL (Structured Query Language). Today, Oracle remains the largest supplier of proprietary Information Management software and one of the first companies to make its business applications available through the Internet. Oracle was first conceived in 1977 and grew quickly during the ’80s, not only because of its Database management products, but also because of its software company acquisitions. Oracle is now also focusing more on hardware, and acquired Sun Microsystems (Server, Storage & Java SW) in 2010.

GOOGLE co-founders, Larry Page & Sergey Brin forever changed the way we use the Web. The world’s most popular search engine (80%), is widely considered the fastest & most accurate ways to find information online. That’s why “Google it” is now a verb. To stay relevant, Google’s search algorithms are continually changing to adapt to people’s search habits, and to prevent content providers from hijacking search results. YouTube was acquired by Google in 2006, and subsequently became the top Online Video distributor. But with the rise of Facebook, Google faces new challenges compounded by its efforts to expand into other territories such as online SW programs, TV ads & Travel search.

The Founders, Sergey Brin was born in Moscow and his family came to American in 1979. Larry Page is from Michigan. They started the company from a dorm room at Stanford University in 1998 and in 2013 brought in $44 billion in revenue. The founders spoke to ABC News anchor Peter Jennings in 2004, describing their ascent; from borrowing money from professors, family & friends, to running a Silicon Valley powerhouse. “I am sometimes something of a lazy person, so when I end up spending a lot of time using something myself, as I did with Google in the earliest of days, I knew it was a big deal,” Brin told Jennings. They’re estimated to have a net worth of $15 billion each, according to Forbes magazine.

Stanford grads Dave Packard & Bill Hewlett co-founded Hewlett-Packard in 1939 and it eventually became a mainstay of Silicon Valley. HP – which began in a “now famous” rented garage with just $538 – grew quickly. HP went from selling Radio & TV broadcast companies a Oscillator to set signal frequencies, to developing an ever-growing product line that included the first pocket-sized Calculators & the first Mini-Computer.

In 1976, Steve Wozniak, who was an intern at the time, built a prototype for the first Personal Computer. HP passed on Wozniak’s offer but they gave him the rights to his idea – which later became Apple computer.

[ Packard’s Pearls, Microsoft’s Bill Gates, 1st Browser’s Mark Andreessen in Premium Content ]