Entrepreneurs

In general, entrepreneurs are enthusiastic and bright risk takers who are willing to take a chance and create new markets. In the computer industry, some have become very wealthy, very fast. During the last half of the twentieth century, the vision and daring of computer entrepreneurs generated one of the most extensive technological revolutions ever.

This article contains, in alphabetical order, brief biographical sketches of ten of those entrepreneurs and their contributions: Tim Berners-Lee, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Steven Jobs, Mitchell Kapor, Sandra Kurtzig, Pamela Lopker, Pierre Omidyar, John W. Thompson, and Jerry Yang.

Tim Berners-Lee

Tim Berners-Lee was born in England in 1955, graduated from Oxford University with a degree in physics, and is generally acknowledged as the originator of the World Wide Web. During his adolescence, he was influenced by Arthur C. Clarke's short story "Dial F for Frankenstein." This possibly influenced...