James H. Clark
Encyclopedia
James H. Clark is an American entrepreneur and computer scientist. He founded several notable Silicon Valley
technology companies, including Silicon Graphics, Inc., Netscape Communications Corporation, myCFO and Healtheon
. His research work in computer graphics
led to the development of systems for the fast rendering of three-dimensional computer images
.
and endured a difficult childhood. He dropped out of high school after being suspended, and spent four years in the Navy. Clark began taking night courses at Tulane University
's University College where, despite his lack of a high school diploma, he was able to earn enough credits to be admitted to the University of New Orleans
. There, Clark earned his Bachelor's and a Master's degrees in physics
, followed by a PhD in computer science
from the University of Utah
in 1974.
, serving as an assistant professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz
from 1974 to 1978, and then as an associate professor of electrical engineering at Stanford University
from 1979 to 1982. Clark's research work concerned geometry pipelines
, specialized software or hardware that accelerates the display of three dimensional images. The zenith of his group's advancements was the Geometry Engine, an early hardware accelerator for rendering computer images based on geometric models which he developed in 1979 with his students at Stanford.
s were mainly terminals, but they were soon followed by stand-alone graphical Unix
workstations with very fast graphics rendering hardware. In the mid-1980s, Silicon Graphics began to use the MIPS
CPU
as the foundation of their newest workstations, replacing the Motorola 68000
.
Soon, Silicon Graphics became the world leader in the production of Hollywood movie visual effects and 3-D imaging. Silicon Graphics focused on the high-end market where they could charge a premium for their special hardware and graphics software.
In the early 1990s, Clark fell out with Silicon Graphics management and left the company.
who had led the development of Mosaic
, the first widely distributed and easy-to-use software for browsing the World Wide Web
, while employed at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA). The next year Clark and Andreessen founded Netscape. The founding of Netscape was a pivotal point that helped launch the Internet IPO
boom on Wall Street
during the mid to late 1990s, and Clark reaped the financial benefits of the Internet boom—with an investment of US$5 million, he earned US$2 billion. Just as the Internet boom came to an end, Clark moved on again.
, was founded in early 1996 with backing from Kleiner Perkins and New Enterprise Associates
. Although Clark's original idea turned out a bit too ambitious, it did lead to some successes in administrative streamlining of medical records technology. However, an Atlanta, Georgia startup company, WebMD
, was already making inroads toward the same goal. Knowing that WebMD had financial backing from Microsoft
, Clark decided to merge Healtheon with the original WebMD to form the current WebMD Corporation. WebMD also provides health information on the Internet.
and now operate as Harris myCFO.
Clark was chairman and financial backer of network-security startup Neoteris, founded in 2000, which was acquired by NetScreen in 2003 and subsequently by Juniper Networks
.
Clark was a director and investor in biotechnology company DNA Sciences, founded in 1998, which went bankrupt and was acquired by Genaissance Pharmaceuticals Inc. in 2003.
Clark was the main subject of the 1999 bestseller The New New Thing
: A Silicon Valley Story by U.S. author Michael Lewis
. ISBN 0-340-76699-9
Clark co-produced the movie The Cove. His funding made possible the purchase and covert installation of some high-tech camera and sound-recording equipment required to capture the film's climactic dolphin slaughter. The film addresses the problem of whale and dolphin killing in Taiji, Wakayama
, Japan.
, which honored him for his computer graphics vision and for enabling networked information exchange.
, co-founder of YouTube. The divorce from his third wife of 15 years, Nancy Rutter, a Forbes
journalist, is reported to have cost him $125 million in cash and assets in the settlement. Soon afterwards he began dating Australian model Kristy Hinze
, 36 years his junior. Hinze became his fourth wife when they married in the British Virgin Islands
on March 22, 2009. She gave birth to a daughter in September 2011.
Clark is an enthusiastic yachtsman and the owner of several high-tech sailboats that he has helped to design:
where he was an electrical engineering professor. In 1999, Clark pledged $150 million to the university to go towards erecting the James H. Clark Center for Biomedical Engineering
and towards the sciences for interdisciplinary biomedical research, including stem cell research. Construction started in 2001 and was completed in the summer of 2003. The center is the hub for the Bio-X program
. Additionally, some of his pledge went to procure new educational materials at Stanford, to provide positions for faculty who will be part of the research effort, and to sponsor scholars among graduate students.
In 1999, Clark was honored as number two on Slate Magazine's
list of the 60 largest charitable contributions of 1999. His number two spot was in recognition of his $150 million pledge to Stanford University which was the largest single gift to Stanford since the founding grant and among the largest ever in higher education.
In September 2001, Clark stopped payment on $60 million of the $150 million pledge to Stanford University for Biomedical Science, citing anger over President Bush's restrictions on stem cell research. His decision did not halt the production of the James H. Clark Center which opened in 2003. Stanford's comment in their press release addressing Clark's action was: “While we are saddened by Mr. Clark’s decision, we are deeply grateful for the $90 million he already has committed to The James H. Clark Center for Biomedical Engineering and Sciences, and we appreciate his strong feelings on this subject.”
In the Fall of 2005 Clark and David Filo
of Yahoo!
each donated $30 million to Tulane University's School of Engineering for merit-based scholarships to provide education to deserving students regardless of financial situation in the discipline of engineering. However, after Tulane's restructuring that saw the elimination of nearly all engineering disciplines, the board requested Clark and Filo allow the funds to be used for other programs.
He is a board member for the national council of the World Wide Fund for Nature
(WWF) and contributes towards the organization. Furthermore, the Perlman Music Program
has recognized him for his continued philanthropic efforts towards their organization and their endowment fund.
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...
technology companies, including Silicon Graphics, Inc., Netscape Communications Corporation, myCFO and Healtheon
Healtheon
Healtheon was a dot-com startup company, created in Silicon Valley by Dr. James H. Clark and Pavan Nigam. Healtheon's business plan was to streamline communication and paperwork in the United States health care system...
. His research work in computer graphics
Computer graphics
Computer graphics are graphics created using computers and, more generally, the representation and manipulation of image data by a computer with help from specialized software and hardware....
led to the development of systems for the fast rendering of three-dimensional computer images
3D computer graphics
3D computer graphics are graphics that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric data that is stored in the computer for the purposes of performing calculations and rendering 2D images...
.
Early Life/Education
Clark was born in Plainview, TexasPlainview, Texas
Plainview is a city in and the county seat of Hale County, Texas, United States. The population was 22,336 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Plainview is located at ....
and endured a difficult childhood. He dropped out of high school after being suspended, and spent four years in the Navy. Clark began taking night courses at Tulane University
Tulane University
Tulane University is a private, nonsectarian research university located in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States...
's University College where, despite his lack of a high school diploma, he was able to earn enough credits to be admitted to the University of New Orleans
University of New Orleans
The University of New Orleans, often referred to locally as UNO, is a medium-sized public urban university located on the New Orleans Lakefront within New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. It is a member of the LSU System and the Urban 13 association. Currently UNO is without a proper chancellor...
. There, Clark earned his Bachelor's and a Master's degrees in physics
Physics
Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
, followed by a PhD in computer science
Computer science
Computer science or computing science is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems...
from the University of Utah
University of Utah
The University of Utah, also known as the U or the U of U, is a public, coeducational research university in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. The university was established in 1850 as the University of Deseret by the General Assembly of the provisional State of Deseret, making it Utah's oldest...
in 1974.
Academia
After completing his PhD, Clark worked at NYIT's Computer Graphics LabComputer Graphics Lab
The Computer Graphics Lab was a computer lab located at the New York Institute of Technology back in the late 1970s. It was originally located at the "pink building" on the NYIT campus....
, serving as an assistant professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz
University of California, Santa Cruz
The University of California, Santa Cruz, also known as UC Santa Cruz or UCSC, is a public, collegiate university; one of ten campuses in the University of California...
from 1974 to 1978, and then as an associate professor of electrical engineering 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...
from 1979 to 1982. Clark's research work concerned geometry pipelines
Geometry pipelines
Geometric manipulation of modeling primitives, such as that performed by a geometry pipeline, is the first stage in computer graphics systems which perform image generation based on geometric models...
, specialized software or hardware that accelerates the display of three dimensional images. The zenith of his group's advancements was the Geometry Engine, an early hardware accelerator for rendering computer images based on geometric models which he developed in 1979 with his students at Stanford.
Silicon Graphics, Inc.
In 1982, Jim Clark along with several Stanford graduate students founded Silicon Graphics, Inc. (SGI). The earliest Silicon Graphics graphical workstationWorkstation
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...
s were mainly terminals, but they were soon followed by stand-alone graphical 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...
workstations with very fast graphics rendering hardware. In the mid-1980s, Silicon Graphics began to use the MIPS
MIPS architecture
MIPS is a reduced instruction set computer instruction set architecture developed by MIPS Technologies . The early MIPS architectures were 32-bit, and later versions were 64-bit...
CPU
Central processing unit
The central processing unit is the portion of a computer system that carries out the instructions of a computer program, to perform the basic arithmetical, logical, and input/output operations of the system. The CPU plays a role somewhat analogous to the brain in the computer. The term has been in...
as the foundation of their newest workstations, replacing the Motorola 68000
Motorola 68000
The Motorola 68000 is a 16/32-bit CISC microprocessor core designed and marketed by Freescale Semiconductor...
.
Soon, Silicon Graphics became the world leader in the production of Hollywood movie visual effects and 3-D imaging. Silicon Graphics focused on the high-end market where they could charge a premium for their special hardware and graphics software.
In the early 1990s, Clark fell out with Silicon Graphics management and left the company.
Netscape
In 1993 Clark met Marc AndreessenMarc Andreessen
Marc Andreessen is an American entrepreneur, investor, software engineer, and multi-millionaire best known as co-author of Mosaic, the first widely-used web browser, and co-founder of Netscape Communications Corporation. He founded and later sold the software company Opsware to Hewlett-Packard...
who had led the development of Mosaic
Mosaic (web browser)
Mosaic is the web browser credited with popularizing the World Wide Web. It was also a client for earlier protocols such as FTP, NNTP, and gopher. Its clean, easily understood user interface, reliability, Windows port and simple installation all contributed to making it the application that opened...
, the first widely distributed and easy-to-use software for browsing the World Wide Web
World Wide Web
The World Wide Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet...
, while employed at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA). The next year Clark and Andreessen founded Netscape. The founding of Netscape was a pivotal point that helped launch the Internet IPO
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...
boom on Wall Street
Wall Street
Wall Street refers to the financial district of New York City, named after and centered on the eight-block-long street running from Broadway to South Street on the East River in Lower Manhattan. Over time, the term has become a metonym for the financial markets of the United States as a whole, or...
during the mid to late 1990s, and Clark reaped the financial benefits of the Internet boom—with an investment of US$5 million, he earned US$2 billion. Just as the Internet boom came to an end, Clark moved on again.
Healtheon/WebMD
In 1995, Clark became interested in streamlining the paperwork associated with the health-care industry. The resulting start-up, HealtheonHealtheon
Healtheon was a dot-com startup company, created in Silicon Valley by Dr. James H. Clark and Pavan Nigam. Healtheon's business plan was to streamline communication and paperwork in the United States health care system...
, was founded in early 1996 with backing from Kleiner Perkins and New Enterprise Associates
New Enterprise Associates
New Enterprise Associates is a global investment firm focused on venture capital and growth equity investments. With approximately $11 billion in committed capital, NEA is among the largest venture firms. The firm invests in three broad industry sectors: information technology, healthcare, and...
. Although Clark's original idea turned out a bit too ambitious, it did lead to some successes in administrative streamlining of medical records technology. However, an Atlanta, Georgia startup company, WebMD
WebMD
WebMD is an American corporation which provides health information services. It was founded in 1996 by Jim Clark and Pavan Nigam as Healthscape, later Healtheon, and then acquired WebMD in 1999 to form Healtheon/WebMD...
, was already making inroads toward the same goal. Knowing that WebMD had financial backing from Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
, Clark decided to merge Healtheon with the original WebMD to form the current WebMD Corporation. WebMD also provides health information on the Internet.
Other affiliations
In 1999, Jim Clark launched myCFO, a company formed to help wealthy Silicon Valley individuals manage their fortunes. In late 2002, while Clark served on the board of directors, most of myCFO's operations were sold to Harris BankHarris Bank
BMO Harris Bank is a subsidiary of Montreal-based Canadian bank Bank of Montreal. Today the bank holding company is formally named BMO Bankcorp, Inc....
and now operate as Harris myCFO.
Clark was chairman and financial backer of network-security startup Neoteris, founded in 2000, which was acquired by NetScreen in 2003 and subsequently by Juniper Networks
Juniper Networks
Juniper Networks is an information technology and computer networking products multinational company, founded in 1996. It is head quartered in Sunnyvale, California, USA. The company designs and sells high-performance Internet Protocol network products and services...
.
Clark was a director and investor in biotechnology company DNA Sciences, founded in 1998, which went bankrupt and was acquired by Genaissance Pharmaceuticals Inc. in 2003.
Clark was the main subject of the 1999 bestseller The New New Thing
The New New Thing
The New New Thing : A Silicon Valley Story is a book by Michael M. Lewis published in 1999 about the founder of several Silicon Valley companies, James H. Clark, and the entrepreneurial culture that dominated the area during the height of the Internet boom....
: A Silicon Valley Story by U.S. author Michael Lewis
Michael Lewis (author)
Michael Lewis is an American non-fiction author and financial journalist. His bestselling books include The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine, Liar's Poker, The New New Thing, Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game, Panic and Home Game: An...
. ISBN 0-340-76699-9
Clark co-produced the movie The Cove. His funding made possible the purchase and covert installation of some high-tech camera and sound-recording equipment required to capture the film's climactic dolphin slaughter. The film addresses the problem of whale and dolphin killing in Taiji, Wakayama
Taiji, Wakayama
is a town located in Higashimuro District, Wakayama, Japan.As of 1 January 2011, the town has an estimated population of 3,225 and a population density of 541 persons per km². The total area is 5.96 km². Taiji is the smallest local government by area in Wakayama Prefecture because, unlike others,...
, Japan.
Awards
James Clark was a recipient of the 1997 Kilby International AwardsKilby International Awards
The Kilby International Awards was an award created by the High Tech Committee of the North Dallas Chamber of Commerce, in 1990 to boost interest in the area. It was named after inventor Jack Kilby...
, which honored him for his computer graphics vision and for enabling networked information exchange.
Personal life
Clark has been married four times and has two children. In 2000, his daughter Kathy married Chad HurleyChad Hurley
Chad Meredith Hurley is an American co-founder and former Chief Executive Officer of the popular video sharing website YouTube. In June 2006, he was voted 28th on Business 2.0's "50 People Who Matter Now" list...
, co-founder of YouTube. The divorce from his third wife of 15 years, Nancy Rutter, a Forbes
Forbes
Forbes is an American publishing and media company. Its flagship publication, the Forbes magazine, is published biweekly. Its primary competitors in the national business magazine category are Fortune, which is also published biweekly, and Business Week...
journalist, is reported to have cost him $125 million in cash and assets in the settlement. Soon afterwards he began dating Australian model Kristy Hinze
Kristy Hinze
Kristy Hinze is an Australian model, actress and television host. Hinze has appeared in Sports Illustrated as well as the Victoria's Secret catalogue.-Life and career:...
, 36 years his junior. Hinze became his fourth wife when they married in the British Virgin Islands
British Virgin Islands
The Virgin Islands, often called the British Virgin Islands , is a British overseas territory and overseas territory of the European Union, located in the Caribbean to the east of Puerto Rico. The islands make up part of the Virgin Islands archipelago, the remaining islands constituting the U.S...
on March 22, 2009. She gave birth to a daughter in September 2011.
Clark is an enthusiastic yachtsman and the owner of several high-tech sailboats that he has helped to design:
- HyperionHyperion (yacht)Hyperion is the name of a sailing yacht built by the Royal Huisman in Holland in 1998 and designed by German Frers. At the time of her launch, she was the largest sloop ever build and the tallest mast ever built...
, 47.5m sloopSloopA sloop is a sail boat with a fore-and-aft rig and a single mast farther forward than the mast of a cutter....
-rigged sailing yacht with 59m carbon fiberCarbon fiberCarbon fiber, alternatively graphite fiber, carbon graphite or CF, is a material consisting of fibers about 5–10 μm in diameter and composed mostly of carbon atoms. The carbon atoms are bonded together in crystals that are more or less aligned parallel to the long axis of the fiber...
mast. Recently sold. - AthenaAthena (yacht)Athena is a clipper-bowed 3-masted gaff rigged schooner built by Royal Huisman in 2004 for internet entrepreneur James H. Clark. Clark purchased a 47.4 meter sloop, Hyperion, from Royal Huisman in 1998...
, 90m classic three-masted gaffGaff rigGaff rig is a sailing rig in which the sail is four-cornered, fore-and-aft rigged, controlled at its peak and, usually, its entire head by a spar called the gaff...
aluminum schoonerSchoonerA schooner is a type of sailing vessel characterized by the use of fore-and-aft sails on two or more masts with the forward mast being no taller than the rear masts....
. - Hanuman, 42.1m J-Class sloopJ-class yachtThe J-Class serves as a rating for large sailing yachts designed between 1930 and 1937. Reserved for a wealthy elite of yachtsmen, these boats were used to compete with the best sailing talents in three races of the America's Cup.-The 1930s:...
.
Philanthropy
Clark's philanthropic focus has been to contribute to Stanford UniversityStanford 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...
where he was an electrical engineering professor. In 1999, Clark pledged $150 million to the university to go towards erecting the James H. Clark Center for Biomedical Engineering
James H. Clark Center
The James H. Clark Center at Stanford University is a building, completed in 2003, that houses interdisciplinary research in the biological sciences. The building was designed by Fosters and Partners in collaboration with MBT Architecture, and was funded by donations from James H...
and towards the sciences for interdisciplinary biomedical research, including stem cell research. Construction started in 2001 and was completed in the summer of 2003. The center is the hub for the Bio-X program
Stanford University Bio-X Initiative
Stanford University Bio-X Initiative is part of Stanford University and is located in the James H. Clark Center in Stanford, California, adjacent to Palo Alto and Menlo Park....
. Additionally, some of his pledge went to procure new educational materials at Stanford, to provide positions for faculty who will be part of the research effort, and to sponsor scholars among graduate students.
In 1999, Clark was honored as number two on Slate Magazine's
Slate (magazine)
Slate is a US-based English language online current affairs and culture magazine created in 1996 by former New Republic editor Michael Kinsley, initially under the ownership of Microsoft as part of MSN. On 21 December 2004 it was purchased by the Washington Post Company...
list of the 60 largest charitable contributions of 1999. His number two spot was in recognition of his $150 million pledge to Stanford University which was the largest single gift to Stanford since the founding grant and among the largest ever in higher education.
In September 2001, Clark stopped payment on $60 million of the $150 million pledge to Stanford University for Biomedical Science, citing anger over President Bush's restrictions on stem cell research. His decision did not halt the production of the James H. Clark Center which opened in 2003. Stanford's comment in their press release addressing Clark's action was: “While we are saddened by Mr. Clark’s decision, we are deeply grateful for the $90 million he already has committed to The James H. Clark Center for Biomedical Engineering and Sciences, and we appreciate his strong feelings on this subject.”
In the Fall of 2005 Clark and David Filo
David Filo
David Filo is an American businessman and the co-founder of Yahoo! with Jerry Yang.Until the company decided to switch to PHP, his Filo Server Program, written in the C programming language, was the server-side scripting software used to dynamically serve variable web pages, called Filo Server...
of Yahoo!
Yahoo!
Yahoo! Inc. is an American multinational internet corporation headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, United States. The company is perhaps best known for its web portal, search engine , Yahoo! Directory, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Groups, Yahoo! Answers, advertising, online mapping ,...
each donated $30 million to Tulane University's School of Engineering for merit-based scholarships to provide education to deserving students regardless of financial situation in the discipline of engineering. However, after Tulane's restructuring that saw the elimination of nearly all engineering disciplines, the board requested Clark and Filo allow the funds to be used for other programs.
He is a board member for the national council of the World Wide Fund for Nature
World Wide Fund for Nature
The World Wide Fund for Nature is an international non-governmental organization working on issues regarding the conservation, research and restoration of the environment, formerly named the World Wildlife Fund, which remains its official name in Canada and the United States...
(WWF) and contributes towards the organization. Furthermore, the Perlman Music Program
Perlman Music Program
The Perlman Music Program was founded by Itzhak Perlman and his wife, Toby, in 1995. The program is headquartered in Shelter Island, New York. It offers exceptionally talented young string players, aged 12 to 18, a six-week summer residential courses in solo performance, chamber music, string...
has recognized him for his continued philanthropic efforts towards their organization and their endowment fund.
Books
- Clark, Jim, and Owen Edwards, Netscape Time: The Making of the Billion-Dollar Start-Up That Took On Microsoft, New York: St. Martin's Press, 1999. ISBN 0312199341.