Thinking outside the cube

Mon, 27 Sep 1999 16:00:00 +0000

The words "Internet entrepreneur" make most people think of whiz-kids barely out of college. But Philippe Kahn, CEO of Starfish Software, is an Internet entrepreneur with a track record as old as the PC itself. The French-born mathematician began his career in Zurich, Switzerland, working on the Pascal computer language, and then became one of the first programmers on the Micral prototype computer in 1973. Although the project never made it into the U.S. market, it's considered the first true PC, predating even the Altair.

By 1982, Kahn had emigrated to the United States and used his programming experience to create Borland International (now Inprise), a pioneering software development tools company that was for a time one of the world's largest software companies. At Borland, Kahn waged a tough head-to-head battle with Microsoft that eventually led to Borland's near financial collapse and Kahn's resignation in 1994. But Kahn, 47, isn't bitter about the experience. Instead, he credits his Microsoft-dealt defeat with helping spur his move to the Internet.

Mr. Fix-it

Mon, 20 Sep 1999 16:00:00 +0000

Serendipitously named Maynard Webb just stepped into one of the most closely watched positions on the Internet. As the newly appointed chief of eBay technologies, Webb, 43, will take charge of eBay's tech operations, strategy and engineering staff. But his first task is to shore up a system that has shown signs of serious growing pains. Over the summer the auction site suffered a string of outages -- including a disastrous 21-hour shutdown in June -- that enraged users and sent eBay shares tumbling more than 60 percent from their one-year high of $209.25. But the week after eBay announced Webb's appointment on Aug. 9, the stock gained 23 percent.

How did Webb add more than $2 billion to a company's market valuation before taking any action? Well, it may not have been Webb alone -- but his reputation as a seasoned, methodical technology infrastructure and operations expert certainly didn't hurt; he is just the type of taskmaster eBay needs. Webb built an integrated IT system that included enterprise resource planning and e-commerce capabilities for Bay Networks, and orchestrated a shift for disk-drive maker Quantum from a mainframe, closed system to a client-server architecture. Prior to his top tech position at eBay, Webb was chief information officer for PC maker Gateway, where he oversaw e-commerce and other Internet operations.

Salon.com > Sean Donahue

Thinking outside the cube

Mr. Fix-it