Idealab Logo and Office

Idealab (formerly known as idealab!) is a business incubator based in Pasadena, California.

History[link]

Idealab was founded by Bill Gross (not the same Bill Gross of PIMCO) in March 1996. Prior to Idealab, he founded GNP Loudspeakers (now GNP Audio Video), an audio equipment manufacturer; GNP Development Inc., acquired by Lotus Software; and Knowledge Adventure, an educational software company, later acquired by Cendant. Gross graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the California Institute of Technology and Idealab has historically hired many alumni; Gross now sits on the Institute's board of trustees.

The company leased the right to use the .tv domain, giving the island nation of Tuvalu enough money to join the United Nations in 2000.^[1]

In December 2009 the company re-branded and introduced a new logo.^[2]

Noteworthy companies[link]

Idealab has created, invested in, and spun off a variety of companies including:

• AirWave Wireless, vendor of wireless network management software acquired by Aruba Networks in 2008^[3]
• Answers.com
• Aptera Motors, electric car manufacturer
• Blastoff.com
• CarsDirect
• Citysearch, acquired by IAC/InterActiveCorp (NASDAQ: IACI).
• Commission Junction
• Compete, Inc.
• eSolar
• eToys.com
• eVoice
• GoTo.com, later renamed Overture Services, now Yahoo! Search Marketing.
• Insider Pages, city guides with customer reviews of restaurants, beauty salons, dentists and other local services.
• Internet Brands
• Intranets.com
• NetZero (NASDAQ: UNTD).
• New.net
• Picasa, acquired by Google
• PetSmart.com
• Punchcard.com
• Scout electromedia (venture investment, 2000)
• Swap.com
• Tickets.com (acquired by Major League Baseball Advanced Media)
• Ubermedia.com

References[link]

External links[link]

• Idealab official site

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This article concerns the PIMCO bond manager; for the business-startup manager, see Bill Gross (entrepreneur)

Bill Gross
Born	(1944-04-13) April 13, 1944 (age 68) Middletown, Ohio
Nationality	American
Alma mater	UCLA (M.B.A.) Duke University
Known for	Co-founder of PIMCO
Net worth	$2.2 billion (2011)[1]

William Hunt "Bill" Gross (born April 13, 1944) is an American financial manager and investment author who co-founded Pacific Investment Management (PIMCO). Gross also runs PIMCO's $252.2 billion Total Return Fund.

Early life and career[link]

Gross was born in Middletown, Ohio, the son of Shirley, a homemaker, and Sewell M. Gross, a sales manager for AK Steel Holding.^[2][3] He was raised a Presbyterian.^[4] His family moved to San Francisco in 1954.^[3] Gross graduated from Duke University in 1966 with a degree in psychology.^[5] At Duke he joined Phi Kappa Psi.^[6] He then served in the Navy and earned an MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management in 1971. Gross briefly played blackjack professionally in Las Vegas, Nevada, and has said that he applies many of his gambling methods for spreading risk and calculating odds to his investment decisions. He is also a CFA Charterholder, earning his credentials while working as an investment analyst for Pacific Mutual Life between 1971 and 1976.^[7]

Gross manages one of the world's largest mutual funds, focusing mostly on bonds. Called "the nation's most prominent bond investor" by the New York Times,^[8] he co-founded Pacific Investment Management (PIMCO) and currently manages PIMCO's Total Return fund (the world's largest bond fund and fifth largest mutual fund) and several smaller ones.^[9]

In the 1990s he authored two popular-market books on investing, Bill Gross on Investing and Everything You've Heard About Investing is Wrong. In September 2008, by holding large positions in agency backed mortgage bonds of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Gross's funds netted U.S. $1.7 billion after the Federal takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac^[10] for which he had lobbied^{[citation needed]}.

According to Forbes, in 2011, he is the 564th richest person in the world, with a net worth of $2.1 billion.^[11]

Personal life[link]

Gross is Married to Sue J. Gross. They have two children together.^[12]

Gross is also a prominent stamp collector.^[13] As of November 2005, he became the third person (after Robert Zoellner in the 1990s and Benjamin K Miller pre-1925)^[14] to form a complete collection of 19th century United States postage stamps. In October 2005, he purchased at auction for $2.97 million a unique plate block of the famous 1918 24-cent U.S. airmail stamps known as the "Inverted Jenny," featuring an engraving of a Curtiss JN-4 biplane printed upside-down. He then traded the Inverted Jenny Plateblock to Donald Sundman, President of Mystic Stamp Company, a stamp dealer, for a 1-cent 1868 "Z Grill" depicting Benjamin Franklin, thus completing Gross's 19th century collection.^[15]

In 2009, Gross bought a house on Harbor Island in Newport Beach, CA for $23 million and then tore it down.^[16]

In July 2011, Gross purchased the former home of actress Jennifer Aniston for a reported $42 million.

Philanthropy[link]

In 2005, Gross donated $23.5 million to Duke University, $20 million of which was set aside for financial aid.^[17]

In 2006, Gross donated to Médecins Sans Frontières the 9.1 million U.S. dollars^[18] that he earned from the auction at Shreves Philatelic Galleries of his British philatelic collections.^[19] His Scandinavian and Finnish collections were sold by Spink auction house in May 2008 to make a donation to the Millennium Villages Project.^[20]

Bibliography[link]

• Bill Gross (1997). Everything You've Heard About Investing Is Wrong!. Crown Business. ISBN 0-8129-2839-3. 
• Bill Gross (1998). Bill Gross on Investing. Wiley. ISBN 0-471-28325-8. 

References[link]

External links[link]

• Speech inducting Bill Gross into the Fixed Income Analysts Society Hall of Fame
• New York Times article on Gross's stamp collecting
• The Bill Gross' Way of Making Money (Market Thoughts)
• The William Gross Stamp Collection
• Gross auction at Shreves Philatelic Galleries
• Bill Gross interviewed by American business news journalist Consuelo Mack

Don Dodge (born 1957)^[1] is a Developer Advocate for Google, which requires that he helps developers build applications on the company's platforms. Prior to working at Google, Dodge was a start-up evangelist at Microsoft, where he was one of their most visible employees following Robert Scoble's departure in 2006.^[2]

Biography[link]

Dodge received a bachelor of science from the University of Southern Maine, majoring in accounting. Afterward, he received an MBA from New Hampshire College. Following graduation, Dodge worked at a number of technology companies, including Digital Equipment, Forte Software, AltaVista, Napster, and Bowstreet. Afterward, he worked at Groove Networks. When the company was acquired by Microsoft, Dodge became Director of Business Development for Microsoft's Emerging Business Team. He was also known as a "start-up evangelist" for Microsoft.^[3] Focusing on the New England area and based in New Hampshire,^[2] Dodge often worked specifically with companies in the greater Boston area, to help them use Microsoft products for their companies.^[4] Dodge felt positively towards Ray Ozzie, CEO of Groove Networks, whom replaced Bill Gates as Chief Software Architect at Microsoft following Gates' retirement announcement.^[5]

Dodge was laid off from Microsoft on November 5, 2009,^[1] and then he became a Developer Advocate for Google,^[6] where he helps developers build applications on Google's platforms, as well as help venture capitalists and start-up companies work with Google.^[4] After moving to Google, Dodge switched from using a Windows-based computer to a Mac-based one, a move which he enjoys greatly.^[7] In 2010, Dodge compared Google to Microsoft when it was a ten-year-old company, indicating that it still had a lot of growth ahead of it.^[8] Dodge writes a personal blog called "The Next Big Thing".^[4]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Don Dodge's personal blog
• Don Dodge at CrunchBase

The topic of this article may not meet Wikipedia's general notability guideline. Please help to establish notability by adding reliable, secondary sources about the topic. If notability cannot be established, the article is likely to be merged, redirected, or deleted. (December 2011)

Klaus Hommels is a venture capitalist based in Zurich, Switzerland. He focuses on seed and early-stage investments and has founded his own venture capital fund by the name Hommels Holding through which he has been investing mainly in Internet businesses. He has been involved in successful internet investments such as Skype, Facebook and Xing.^{[1] [2]}

He studied for a Master of Science in Business Administration and PhD in Finance at the University of Fribourg in Fribourg, Switzerland. He worked as Managing Director in business development, content and advertising for AOL Germany (1995–1999). After that he started at Apax Partners in Munich as a Director (1999–2000). At the height of the dotcom bubble burst he started out as a private investor. In 2006, after six years as a private investor, Klaus joined Benchmark Capital (now Balderton Capital) as a Venture Partner in London. In 2007, he founded Hommels Holding which focuses mainly on internet businesses.^{[3] [4]}

Investments[link]

Klaus Hommels has made early stage investments in some very successful internet businesses. His successful investments included Skype (acquired by Ebay for USD 4.1 billion), Xing (IPO in 2006), QXL.com (acquired by Naspers Group) and Adjug (sold to Hubert Burda Media). His current investments include Facebook, King.com, Stardoll, Woo Media, Klarna and Spotify.^{[5] [6]}

Honors[link]

Klaus Hommels was elected as Europe’s most successful Entrepreneurial Private Investor in 2006 by the leading European business schools IESE, INSEAD, and the University of St. Gallen.^[7]

References[link]