Andy Bechtolsheim
Encyclopedia
Andreas von Bechtolsheim (born September 30, 1955) is an electrical engineer who co-founded Sun Microsystems
in 1982 and was its chief hardware designer.
He later became an investor, writing the first major check to fund Google
, and starting several computer networking companies.
, in the German
state of Bavaria
. He grew up on a farm with the Alps in the distance, the second of four children. Since the isolated house had no television and distant neighbors, he experimented with electronics as a child.
In 1963 the family moved to Rome
, Italy
and then in 1968 to Nonnenhorn
on Lake Constance
in Germany. When he was only 16, he designed an industrial controller based on the Intel 8008
for a nearby company. Royalties from the product supported much of his education.
As an engineering student at University of Technology Munich Bechtolsheim entered the jugend forscht
contest for young researchers, and after entering for three years, won the physics prize in 1974.
Bechtolsheim received a Fulbright Award
and moved to the US in 1975 to attend Carnegie Mellon University
, where he received his master's degree
in computer engineering in 1976. In 1977 Bechtolsheim moved to Silicon Valley
to work for Intel, but quit when they transferred him to Oregon
the first week. He took a summer job at Stanford University
and became a Ph.D.
student in electrical engineering.
At Stanford, Bechtolsheim designed a powerful computer
(called a workstation
) with built-in networking called the SUN workstation
.
The name was derived from Stanford University Network
.
It was based on the Xerox Alto
computer developed at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center. Bechtolsheim was a "no fee consultant" at Xerox, meaning he was not paid but had free access to the research being done there. In particular, Lynn Conway
was using workstations to design very-large-scale integration
(VLSI) circuits.
Bechtolsheim's advisor was Forest Baskett and in 1980 Vaughan Pratt also provided leadership to the SUN project. Support was provided by the Computer Science Department and DARPA.
The modular computer was used for research projects such as developing the V-System
, and for early Internet
routers. Bechtolsheim tried to interest other companies in manufacturing the workstations, but only got lukewarm responses.
, where Vinod Khosla
worked at the time. Khosla had graduated a couple years earlier from the Stanford Graduate School of Business
with Scott McNealy
, who managed manufacturing at Onyx Systems
. The three wrote a short business plan and quickly received funding from venture capital
ists in 1982.
Bechtolsheim left Stanford to found the company, Sun Microsystems
, as employee number one. Bill Joy
, who was part of the team developing the BSD series of Unix
operating systems, was the fourth member of the founding team. For a while Bechtolsheim and Joy shared an apartment in Palo Alto, California
.
The first product, the Sun-1
, included the Stanford CPU board design with improved memory expansion, and a sheet-metal case. By the end of the year, the experimental Ethernet
interface designed by Bechtolsheim was replaced by a commercial board from 3Com
.
Sun Microsystems had its Initial Public Offering
in 1986 and reached $1 billion in sales by 1988.
But Bechtolsheim wanted something new and around this time formed a project code-named UniSun, to design a small, inexpensive desktop computer for the educational market. The result was the SPARCstation 1
(known as "campus"), the start of another line of Sun products.
acquired the firm for $220 million, with Bechtolsheim owning 60%. He became Vice President and general manager of Cisco's Gigabit Systems Business Unit, until leaving the company in December 2003 to head Kealia, Inc.
Bechtolsheim founded Kealia in early 2001 with Stanford Professor David Cheriton
, who was also a partner in Granite Systems, to work on advanced server technologies using the Opteron
processor from Advanced Micro Devices
. In February 2004, Sun Microsystems announced it was acquiring Kealia in a stock swap. Due to the acquisition, Bechtolsheim returned to Sun again as senior vice president and chief architect.
Kealia hardware technology was used in the Sun Fire X4500
storage product.
Along with Cheriton, in 2005 Bechtolsheim launched another high-speed networking company, Arastra. Arastra later changed its name to Arista Networks
. Bechtolsheim left Sun Microsystems to become the Chairman and Chief Development Officer of Arista in October, 2008, but stated he still was associated with Sun in an advisory role.
Bechtolsheim is a founding member of Carnegie Mellon Silicon Valley CMU's West Coast campus in Mountain View, California
.
, an early-stage venture capital investment firm, along with two Sun colleagues: Bill Joy
and Roy Sardiña. HighBAR's investments include Mirapoint, Brocade
, Tasmania Network Systems
, Brightmail
, and Regroup
.
Bechtolsheim and Cheriton were two of the first investors in Google
, investing US$100,000 each in September 1998. Bechtolsheim wrote the check to "Google Inc" prior to the company even being founded. The story that says Bechtolsheim coined the name "Google" is untrue. However, he did motivate the founders to officially organize the company under that name. When he gave the check to Lawrence E. Page and Sergey Brin
, Google's founders, they had not actually yet been legally incorporated.
As a result of shrewd investments like these, Bechtolsheim was seen as one of the most successful "angel investor
s", particularly in areas such as electronic design automation
(EDA), which refers to the software used by people designing computer chips. He has made a number of successful investments in EDA. He argues that changes in the chips themselves are outpacing the development of EDA tools, creating what he sees as an opportunity. It was his interest in these design tools while at Stanford which prompted his frustration when waiting for access to mainframes which led to his development of the first workstation.
In one such EDA company, Magma Design Automation
, his stake was valued around $60 million.
The most profitable for Bechtolsheim was his initial $100,000 investment in Google, which, in March 2010, was worth approximately $1.7 billion. His net worth was estimated at $2 billion, just after Donald Trump
.
Bechtolsheim invested in Tapulous
, the maker of music games for the Apple iPhone. Tapulous was acquired by the Walt Disney Company
in 2010.
Bechtolsheim joined George T. Haber, a former colleague at Sun, to invest in wireless chip company CrestaTech in 2006 and 2008.
Bechtolsheim was an investor in all of Haber's previous startups: CompCore purchased by Zoran
, GigaPixel purchased by 3Dfx
and Mobilygen purchased by Maxim Integrated Products
in 2008.
He was reported to be an early investor in Claria Corporation
, which ceased operation in 2008.
Bechtolsheim received a Smithsonian Leadership Award for Innovation in 1999, a Stanford Entrepreneur Company of the year award, and is a member of the National Academy of Engineering
.
Bechtolsheim gave the opening keynote speech at the International Supercomputing Conference
in 2009.
Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems, Inc. was a company that sold :computers, computer components, :computer software, and :information technology services. Sun was founded on February 24, 1982...
in 1982 and was its chief hardware designer.
He later became an investor, writing the first major check to fund Google
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
, and starting several computer networking companies.
Early life
Bechtolsheim was born near AmmerseeAmmersee
Ammersee is a lake in Upper Bavaria, Germany located southwest of Munich between the towns of Herrsching and Dießen am Ammersee. With a surface area of approximately , it is the sixth largest lake in Germany. The lake is located at an elevation of , and has a maximum depth of . Like other Bavarian...
, in the German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
state of Bavaria
Bavaria
Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...
. He grew up on a farm with the Alps in the distance, the second of four children. Since the isolated house had no television and distant neighbors, he experimented with electronics as a child.
In 1963 the family moved to Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
and then in 1968 to Nonnenhorn
Nonnenhorn
Nonnenhorn is one of the three Bavarian towns on Lake Constance in the Swabian district of Lindau. The air health resort and famous wine town is located between Wasserburg and Kressbronn am Bodensee .-History:...
on Lake Constance
Lake Constance
Lake Constance is a lake on the Rhine at the northern foot of the Alps, and consists of three bodies of water: the Obersee , the Untersee , and a connecting stretch of the Rhine, called the Seerhein.The lake is situated in Germany, Switzerland and Austria near the Alps...
in Germany. When he was only 16, he designed an industrial controller based on the Intel 8008
Intel 8008
The Intel 8008 was an early byte-oriented microprocessor designed and manufactured by Intel and introduced in April 1972. It was an 8-bit CPU with an external 14-bit address bus that could address 16KB of memory...
for a nearby company. Royalties from the product supported much of his education.
As an engineering student at University of Technology Munich Bechtolsheim entered the jugend forscht
Jugend forscht
Jugend forscht is a German youth science competition. With more than 10,000 participants annually, it is the biggest youth science and technology competition in Europe...
contest for young researchers, and after entering for three years, won the physics prize in 1974.
Bechtolsheim received a Fulbright Award
Fulbright Award
The Fulbright Award is a scholarship awarded as part of the Fulbright Program to foster international research and collaboration. The program also awards a fellowship to Ph.D.'s to lecture and teach in foreign universities...
and moved to the US in 1975 to attend Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States....
, where he received his master's degree
Master's degree
A master's is an academic degree granted to individuals who have undergone study demonstrating a mastery or high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice...
in computer engineering in 1976. In 1977 Bechtolsheim moved to Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley is a term which refers to the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California in the United States. The region is home to many of the world's largest technology corporations...
to work for Intel, but quit when they transferred him to Oregon
Oregon
Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...
the first week. He took a summer job at Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
and became a Ph.D.
Doctor of Philosophy
Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated as Ph.D., PhD, D.Phil., or DPhil , in English-speaking countries, is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities...
student in electrical engineering.
Career
Computer
A computer is a programmable machine designed to sequentially and automatically carry out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations. The particular sequence of operations can be changed readily, allowing the computer to solve more than one kind of problem...
(called a workstation
Workstation
A workstation is a high-end microcomputer designed for technical or scientific applications. Intended primarily to be used by one person at a time, they are commonly connected to a local area network and run multi-user operating systems...
) with built-in networking called the SUN workstation
SUN workstation
The original SUN workstation was a modular computer system designed at Stanford University in the early 1980s.-History:The project name was derived from Stanford University Network, the campus network within Stanford....
.
The name was derived from Stanford University Network
Stanford University Network
The Stanford University Network, also known as SUN, SUNet or SU-Net is the campus computer network for Stanford University.-History:Stanford Research Institute, formerly part of Stanford but on a separate campus, was the site of one of the four original ARPANET nodes...
.
It was based on the Xerox Alto
Xerox Alto
The Xerox Alto was one of the first computers designed for individual use , making it arguably what is now called a personal computer. It was developed at Xerox PARC in 1973...
computer developed at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center. Bechtolsheim was a "no fee consultant" at Xerox, meaning he was not paid but had free access to the research being done there. In particular, Lynn Conway
Lynn Conway
Lynn Conway is an American computer scientist, electrical engineer, inventor, trans woman, and activist for the transgender community....
was using workstations to design very-large-scale integration
Very-large-scale integration
Very-large-scale integration is the process of creating integrated circuits by combining thousands of transistors into a single chip. VLSI began in the 1970s when complex semiconductor and communication technologies were being developed. The microprocessor is a VLSI device.The first semiconductor...
(VLSI) circuits.
Bechtolsheim's advisor was Forest Baskett and in 1980 Vaughan Pratt also provided leadership to the SUN project. Support was provided by the Computer Science Department and DARPA.
The modular computer was used for research projects such as developing the V-System
V (operating system)
The V operating system is a microkernel operating system that was developed by faculty and students in the distributed systems group at Stanford University from 1981 to 1988, led by Professors David Cheriton and Keith A. Lantz...
, and for early Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
routers. Bechtolsheim tried to interest other companies in manufacturing the workstations, but only got lukewarm responses.
Founding Sun
One of the companies building computers for VLSI design was Daisy SystemsDaisy Systems
Daisy Systems Corporation incorporated in 1981 in Mountain View, California, was a computer-aided engineering, CAE, company, a pioneer in the Electronic design automation industry....
, where Vinod Khosla
Vinod Khosla
Vinod Khosla is an Indian-born American venture capitalist and an influential personality in Silicon Valley....
worked at the time. Khosla had graduated a couple years earlier from the Stanford Graduate School of Business
Stanford Graduate School of Business
The Stanford Graduate School of Business is one of the professional schools of Stanford University, in Stanford, California and is broadly regarded as one of the best business schools in the world.The Stanford GSB offers a general management Master of Business Administration degree, the Sloan...
with Scott McNealy
Scott McNealy
Scott McNealy is an American business executive. He co-founded computer technology company Sun Microsystems in 1982 along with Vinod Khosla, Bill Joy, and Andy Bechtolsheim.-Biography:...
, who managed manufacturing at Onyx Systems
Onyx Systems
Onyx Systems, Inc., founded in Cupertino, California in 1979 by Bob Marsh and Kip Myers, was one of the earliest vendors of microprocessor-based Unix systems...
. The three wrote a short business plan and quickly received funding from venture capital
Venture capital
Venture capital is financial capital provided to early-stage, high-potential, high risk, growth startup companies. The venture capital fund makes money by owning equity in the companies it invests in, which usually have a novel technology or business model in high technology industries, such as...
ists in 1982.
Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems, Inc. was a company that sold :computers, computer components, :computer software, and :information technology services. Sun was founded on February 24, 1982...
, as employee number one. Bill Joy
Bill Joy
William Nelson Joy , commonly known as Bill Joy, is an American computer scientist. Joy co-founded Sun Microsystems in 1982 along with Vinod Khosla, Scott McNealy and Andy Bechtolsheim, and served as chief scientist at the company until 2003...
, who was part of the team developing the BSD series of Unix
Unix
Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...
operating systems, was the fourth member of the founding team. For a while Bechtolsheim and Joy shared an apartment in Palo Alto, California
Palo Alto, California
Palo Alto is a California charter city located in the northwest corner of Santa Clara County, in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, United States. The city shares its borders with East Palo Alto, Mountain View, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Stanford, Portola Valley, and Menlo Park. It is...
.
The first product, the Sun-1
Sun-1
Sun-1 was the first generation of UNIX computer workstations and servers produced by Sun Microsystems, launched in May 1982. These were based on a CPU board designed by Andy Bechtolsheim while he was a graduate student at Stanford University and funded by DARPA...
, included the Stanford CPU board design with improved memory expansion, and a sheet-metal case. By the end of the year, the experimental Ethernet
Ethernet
Ethernet is a family of computer networking technologies for local area networks commercially introduced in 1980. Standardized in IEEE 802.3, Ethernet has largely replaced competing wired LAN technologies....
interface designed by Bechtolsheim was replaced by a commercial board from 3Com
3Com
3Com was a pioneering digital electronics manufacturer best known for its computer network infrastructure products. The company was co-founded in 1979 by Robert Metcalfe, Howard Charney, Bruce Borden, and Greg Shaw...
.
Sun Microsystems had its Initial Public Offering
Initial public offering
An initial public offering or stock market launch, is the first sale of stock by a private company to the public. It can be used by either small or large companies to raise expansion capital and become publicly traded enterprises...
in 1986 and reached $1 billion in sales by 1988.
But Bechtolsheim wanted something new and around this time formed a project code-named UniSun, to design a small, inexpensive desktop computer for the educational market. The result was the SPARCstation 1
SPARCstation 1
The SPARCstation 1, or Sun 4/60, is the first of the SPARCstation series of SPARC-based computer workstations sold by Sun Microsystems. It had a distinctive slim enclosure and was first sold in April 1989, with Sun's support for it ending in 1995.Based around a LSI Logic RISC CPU running at...
(known as "campus"), the start of another line of Sun products.
Other companies
In 1995, Bechtolsheim left Sun to found Granite Systems, a company that focused on developing high-speed network switches. In 1996, Cisco SystemsCisco Systems
Cisco Systems, Inc. is an American multinational corporation headquartered in San Jose, California, United States, that designs and sells consumer electronics, networking, voice, and communications technology and services. Cisco has more than 70,000 employees and annual revenue of US$...
acquired the firm for $220 million, with Bechtolsheim owning 60%. He became Vice President and general manager of Cisco's Gigabit Systems Business Unit, until leaving the company in December 2003 to head Kealia, Inc.
Bechtolsheim founded Kealia in early 2001 with Stanford Professor David Cheriton
David Cheriton
David Ross Cheriton is a Canadian-born computer science professor at Stanford University who has investments in technology companies...
, who was also a partner in Granite Systems, to work on advanced server technologies using the Opteron
Opteron
Opteron is AMD's x86 server and workstation processor line, and was the first processor which supported the AMD64 instruction set architecture . It was released on April 22, 2003 with the SledgeHammer core and was intended to compete in the server and workstation markets, particularly in the same...
processor from Advanced Micro Devices
Advanced Micro Devices
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. or AMD is an American multinational semiconductor company based in Sunnyvale, California, that develops computer processors and related technologies for commercial and consumer markets...
. In February 2004, Sun Microsystems announced it was acquiring Kealia in a stock swap. Due to the acquisition, Bechtolsheim returned to Sun again as senior vice president and chief architect.
Kealia hardware technology was used in the Sun Fire X4500
Sun Fire X4500
The Sun Fire X4500 data server integrates server and storage technologies. It was announced in July, 2006 and is part of the Sun Fire server line from Sun Microsystems....
storage product.
Along with Cheriton, in 2005 Bechtolsheim launched another high-speed networking company, Arastra. Arastra later changed its name to Arista Networks
Arista Networks
Arista Networks is a computer networking company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, USA. The company designs and sells network switches for datacenter, high-performance computing and high-frequency trading environments...
. Bechtolsheim left Sun Microsystems to become the Chairman and Chief Development Officer of Arista in October, 2008, but stated he still was associated with Sun in an advisory role.
Bechtolsheim is a founding member of Carnegie Mellon Silicon Valley CMU's West Coast campus in Mountain View, California
Mountain View, California
-Downtown:Mountain View has a pedestrian-friendly downtown centered on Castro Street. The downtown area consists of the seven blocks of Castro Street from the Downtown Mountain View Station transit center in the north to the intersection with El Camino Real in the south...
.
Investments
Bechtolsheim co-founded HighBAR VenturesHighBAR Ventures
HighBAR Ventures is a venture capital firm founded by noted Sun Microsystems co-founders Bill Joy, Andy Bechtolsheim together with entrepreneur and former Sun executive Roy Thiele-Sardiña...
, an early-stage venture capital investment firm, along with two Sun colleagues: Bill Joy
Bill Joy
William Nelson Joy , commonly known as Bill Joy, is an American computer scientist. Joy co-founded Sun Microsystems in 1982 along with Vinod Khosla, Scott McNealy and Andy Bechtolsheim, and served as chief scientist at the company until 2003...
and Roy Sardiña. HighBAR's investments include Mirapoint, Brocade
Brocade
Brocade is a class of richly decorative shuttle-woven fabrics, often made in colored silks and with or without gold and silver threads. The name, related to the same root as the word "broccoli," comes from Italian broccato meaning "embossed cloth," originally past participle of the verb broccare...
, Tasmania Network Systems
Tasmania Network Systems
Tasmania Network Systems is a web cache company based in the United States. It was acquired by Cisco Systems on October 26, 1999.The company was an early technical inovator in the Web Cache and Proxy space. They were an early Linux supplier to the Web Services Industry.The company was founded by...
, Brightmail
Brightmail
Brightmail is an e-mail filtering company in the United States. It was acquired by Symantec on May 19, 2004 for $370 million in cash. The company was founded in 1998 and raised $55M in three rounds of venture capital led by Accel, TCV, and Symantec. The CEO at the time of acquisition was Enrique...
, and Regroup
Regroup
Regroup is a communications platform for organizations that offers forums, group management, mailing list management, intranet, emergency messaging, group SMS, text messages, and social media....
.
Bechtolsheim and Cheriton were two of the first investors in Google
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
, investing US$100,000 each in September 1998. Bechtolsheim wrote the check to "Google Inc" prior to the company even being founded. The story that says Bechtolsheim coined the name "Google" is untrue. However, he did motivate the founders to officially organize the company under that name. When he gave the check to Lawrence E. Page and Sergey Brin
Sergey Brin
Sergey Mikhaylovich Brin is a Russian-born American computer scientist and internet entrepreneur who, with Larry Page, co-founded Google, one of the largest internet companies. , his personal wealth is estimated to be $16.7 billion....
, Google's founders, they had not actually yet been legally incorporated.
As a result of shrewd investments like these, Bechtolsheim was seen as one of the most successful "angel investor
Angel investor
An angel investor or angel is an affluent individual who provides capital for a business start-up, usually in exchange for convertible debt or ownership equity...
s", particularly in areas such as electronic design automation
Electronic design automation
Electronic design automation is a category of software tools for designing electronic systems such as printed circuit boards and integrated circuits...
(EDA), which refers to the software used by people designing computer chips. He has made a number of successful investments in EDA. He argues that changes in the chips themselves are outpacing the development of EDA tools, creating what he sees as an opportunity. It was his interest in these design tools while at Stanford which prompted his frustration when waiting for access to mainframes which led to his development of the first workstation.
In one such EDA company, Magma Design Automation
Magma Design Automation
Magma Design Automation is a software company in the electronic design automation industry. The company was founded in 1997 and maintains headquarters in San Jose, California, with facilities throughout North America, Europe, Japan, Asia and India....
, his stake was valued around $60 million.
The most profitable for Bechtolsheim was his initial $100,000 investment in Google, which, in March 2010, was worth approximately $1.7 billion. His net worth was estimated at $2 billion, just after Donald Trump
Donald Trump
Donald John Trump, Sr. is an American business magnate, television personality and author. He is the chairman and president of The Trump Organization and the founder of Trump Entertainment Resorts. Trump's extravagant lifestyle, outspoken manner and role on the NBC reality show The Apprentice have...
.
Bechtolsheim invested in Tapulous
Tapulous
Tapulous, Inc. is an American software and video game developer and publisher headquartered in Palo Alto, California. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company as part of the Disney Interactive Media Group...
, the maker of music games for the Apple iPhone. Tapulous was acquired by the Walt Disney Company
The Walt Disney Company
The Walt Disney Company is the largest media conglomerate in the world in terms of revenue. Founded on October 16, 1923, by Walt and Roy Disney as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, Walt Disney Productions established itself as a leader in the American animation industry before diversifying into...
in 2010.
Bechtolsheim joined George T. Haber, a former colleague at Sun, to invest in wireless chip company CrestaTech in 2006 and 2008.
Bechtolsheim was an investor in all of Haber's previous startups: CompCore purchased by Zoran
Zoran
Zoran is a common Slavic name, the masculine form of Zora, which means dawn, daybreak.-People with this given name:*Zoran Abadić - Serbian architect*Zoran Bečić - Bosnian Serb actor...
, GigaPixel purchased by 3Dfx
3dfx
3dfx Interactive was a company that specialized in the manufacturing of 3D graphics processing units and, later, graphics cards. It was a pioneer in the field for several years in the late 1990s until 2000 when it underwent one of the most high-profile demises in the history of the PC industry...
and Mobilygen purchased by Maxim Integrated Products
Maxim Integrated Products
Maxim Integrated Products is a publicly traded company that designs, manufactures, and sells analog and mixed-signal semiconductor products. Maxim develops integrated circuits for the industrial, communications, consumer, and computing markets....
in 2008.
He was reported to be an early investor in Claria Corporation
Claria Corporation
Claria Corporation was a software company based in Redwood City, California with products many considered spyware. It was established in 1998 by Denis Coleman. Its name was often used interchangeably with its Gain advertising network, which it claimed serviced over 40 million users...
, which ceased operation in 2008.
Bechtolsheim received a Smithsonian Leadership Award for Innovation in 1999, a Stanford Entrepreneur Company of the year award, and is a member of the National Academy of Engineering
National Academy of Engineering
The National Academy of Engineering is a government-created non-profit institution in the United States, that was founded in 1964 under the same congressional act that led to the founding of the National Academy of Sciences...
.
Bechtolsheim gave the opening keynote speech at the International Supercomputing Conference
International Supercomputing Conference
The International Supercomputing Conference is a yearly conference on supercomputing which has been held in Europe since 1986.-History:In 1986 Professor Dr. Hans Werner Meuer, director of the computer centre and professor for computer science at the University of Mannheim co-founded and organized...
in 2009.