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Om Perkash Malik
Om Malik in 2009
Born	(1966-09-29) September 29, 1966 (age 45) New Delhi, India
Website
http://om.co

Om Perkash Malik (born September 29, 1966) is an Indian-American web and technology writer. He is the founder of Giga Omni Media, Inc. and executive editor for technology blog GigaOM. He is also a host on a former Revision3 weekly web-business centric podcast, The GigaOm Show.

Personal life and education[link]

Malik was born in New Delhi. He graduated from St. Stephens’ College in New Delhi in 1986, with an honors degree in chemistry.

Malik suffered a heart attack on December 28, 2007. He was able to walk into the hospital for treatment that night and has been recovering ever since. He had stated that he was doing well, and has since recovered and started working full time for his blogs again.^[1]

Career[link]

Malik moved to New York City in 1993 to be a writer for India Abroad and then for Forbes where he became a senior writer.^[2] He was also a senior writer for Red Herring, focusing on the telecommunications sector, and later became a senior writer there. In late 1994, he launched DesiParty.com, an events site for Indian emigrants. That same year, he co-founded the South Asian Journalists Association (SAJA). In 1995 he helped launch the now-defunct magazine, Masala, and its website Masala.com, a South Asian portal.

In 1997, Malik was on the original team at Forbes.com led by David Churbuck. In 1999 he left Forbes.com to work in the venture capital world, serving as an investment manager at Hambrecht & Quist Asia Pacific; his stay there lasted only a few months because he decided he preferred being a writer.^[2]

In 2000, he moved to San Francisco, California to become a senior writer for Business 2.0 magazine. In 2001, he started GigaOM, a Web 2.0 blog published by GigaOmniMedia, Inc. in San Francisco.^[3] The website has a monthly global audience of 500,000,^[3] is among the top 50 blogs worldwide by Technorati Rank,^[4] and is part of CNet's 100 Most Influential Blogs.^[5]

His first book, Broadbandits: Inside the $750 Billion Telecom Heist, was released on May 15, 2003.^[2] Malik's writings have also appeared in newspapers and magazines such as The Wall Street Journal, Brandweek, and Crain's New York Business.

Malik announced on June 12, 2006, that he was going to work on GigaOM full-time, although he is still a contributing editor and writes a column for Business 2.0. In addition to GigaOM, he also writes for the blogs Web Worker Daily and Tablatronic.

On July 25, 2007, Malik started an podcast on Revision3 called The GigaOm Show hosted by himself and Joyce Kim. On March 27, 2008 he put the show on hiatus to focus on other things, among them his health. The show primarily focuses on technology and business. Malik was also a frequent guest on the former CrankyGeeks podcast with John C. Dvorak.

See also[link]

• TechCrunch

References[link]

External links[link]

• Om's Personal Blog
• Interview with Sramana Mitra
• NYT article about bloggers, including Om

Matthew Charles Mullenweg
Matt Mullenweg in Milan (2008)
Born	(1984-01-11) January 11, 1984 (age 28) Houston, Texas (USA)
Alma mater	University of Houston
Occupation	Founder & CBBQTT[1] Automattic Principal, Mobius Ltd[2] Lead Developer, WordPress Foundation
Known for	WordPress, Automattic & Mobius Ltd.
Website
ma.tt

Matthew Charles "Matt" Mullenweg (born January 11, 1984 in Houston, Texas) is an online social media entrepreneur, web developer and musician living in San Francisco, California. He is best known for developing the free and open source web software, WordPress, which powers 15% of the web and is now managed by The WordPress Foundation.

Mullenweg attended the University of Houston and majored in Political Science before he dropped in 2004 to pursue a job at CNET Networks. ^[3] In late 2005, he quit his job at CNET Networks and founded Automattic, the business behind WordPress.com (which provides free WordPress blogs and other services), Akismet, Gravatar, VaultPress, IntenseDebate, Polldaddy, and more. His professional blog is ma.tt, a domain hack.

Since 2005 Mullenweg has been a frequent keynote/speaker conferences/events, including Canada's Northern Voice,global WordCamp events, SxSW, BlogWorld Expo, Greek Blogger Camp, Yahoo TechDev Talk, Web 2.0 Submit, YCombinator's Startup School, Le Web, etc.

Mullenweg attended the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts where he studied jazz saxophone.^[4] Mullenweg is also a Dvorak Keyboard user and can type over 120wpm.^[5]

Career[link]

In June 2002 Mullenweg started using the b2/cafelog blogging software to complement the photos he was taking on a trip to Washington D.C. after participating in the National Fed Challenge competition. He contributed some minor code regarding typographic entities and cleaner permalinks.

Several months after development of b2 had stopped, in January 2003, he announced^[6] on his blog his plan of forking the software to bring it up to date with web standards and his needs. He was quickly contacted by Mike Little and together they started WordPress from the b2 codebase. They were soon joined by original b2 developer Michel Valdrighi. Mullenweg was only nineteen years old, and a freshman (studying philosophy and political science) at the University of Houston at the time.^[7][8]

He co-founded the Global Multimedia Protocols Group in March 2004 with Eric Meyer and Tantek Çelik. GMPG wrote the first of the Microformats^{[citation needed]}.

In April 2004 with fellow WordPress developer Dougal Campbell, they launched Ping-O-Matic^[9] which is a hub for notifying blog search engines such as Technorati of blog updates. Ping-O-Matic currently handles over 1 million pings a day.^{[citation needed]} The following month, the principal WordPress competitor Movable Type announced a radical price change^[10] which drove thousands of users to seek alternate solutions. This is widely regarded as the tipping point for WordPress.

In October 2004, he was recruited by CNET^[11] to work on WordPress for them and help them with blogs and new media offerings. He dropped out of college and moved to San Francisco from Houston, TX the following month. Mullenweg announced bbPress in December,^[12] which he wrote from scratch in a few days over the holidays.

Mullenweg and the WordPress team released WordPress 1.5 "Strayhorn"^[13] in February 2005, which had over 900,000 downloads. The release introduced their theme system, moderation features, and a new front end and back end redesign. During late March and early April, Andrew Baio found at least 168,000 hidden articles on the WordPress.org website that were using a technique known as cloaking.^[14] Mullenweg admitted accepting the questionable advertisement and removed all articles from the domain.^[15]

Mullenweg left CNET in October 2005^[16] to focus on WordPress and related activities full time, announcing Akismet several days later.^[17] Akismet is a distributed effort to stop comment and trackback spam by using the collective input of everyone using the service. In December, he announced Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com and Akismet. Automattic employed people who had contributed to the WordPress project, including lead developer Ryan Boren and WordPress MU creator Donncha O Caoimh. An Akismet licensing deal^[18] and WordPress bundling^[19] was announced with Yahoo! Small Business web hosting about the same time.

In January 2006 Mullenweg recruited former Oddpost CEO and Yahoo! executive Toni Schneider to join Automattic as CEO, bringing the size of the company to 5. An April 2006Regulation D filing showed that Automattic raised approximately 1.1 million dollars in funding,^[20] which Mullenweg addressed in his blog.^[21] Investors were Polaris Ventures, True Ventures, Radar Partners, and CNET.

Mullenweg gives back to the startup community through his angel investment firm Audrey capital, which has backed nearly 30 companies since 2008. ^[22]

In January 2008 Automattic raised an additional US$29.5 million for the company from Polaris Venture Partners, True Ventures, Radar Partners, and the New York Times Company.^[23] According to Mullenweg's blog the funding was a result of spurned acquisition offers months before and the decision to keep the company independent. At the time the company had 18 employees.^[24] One of the reported plans for the funding was in a forum service called TalkPress.^[25]

In July 2008 Mullenweg was featured on the cover of Linux Journal wearing a Fight Club t-shirt.^[26] Later that month a San Francisco Chronicle story put him on the cover of the business section and noted he still drove a Chevrolet Lumina and WordPress.com was ranked #31 on Alexa with 90 million monthly page views.^[27] In September, Mullenweg was being named to the Top 30 Entrepreneurs Under 30 by Inc. Magazine^[28] and one of the 25 Most Influential People on the Web by BusinessWeek,^[29] again the youngest on BusinessWeek's list.

In January 2009, San Francisco Business Times reports that traffic to WordPress sites are growing faster than for Google’s blogger service and significantly outstrip its nearest competitor, SixApart. A reporter at EMarketer calls Mullenweg “quite an entrepreneur and visionary” when comparing to WordPress’ building momentum over its competitors to Facebook’s growing popularity over MySpace. ^[30]

In February 2009, an interview with Power Magazine, titling Mullenweg the Blog Prince, dispels the myth of blogging being a passing trend revealing that the company has seen a 10% month-on-month organic growth which more than 15,000 new blogs hosted by WordPress each day. ^[31]

In May 2009, Mullenweg's unwillingness to comply with Chinese censorship WordPress.com was effectively blocked by China's Golden Shield Project.^[32]

A Bloomberg interview in April 2011, describes the impressive scalability of the company which low infrastructure costs of only 300-400K a month while powering 12% of the web with 1350 servers and 80 employees across 62 cities. The management of the global company excludes all internal email but instead communication is rooted in their P2theme.com blog theme. ^[33]

In July 2011, Wordpress blogs pass the 50 million milestone – powering over 50 million blogs globally. ^[34]

Mulleweg's 2011 State of the Word reveals that Wordpress has grown to power 14.7% of the top million websites in the world and data shows 22 out of everyone 100 new active domains in US are running WordPress. A global survey revealed that 6,800 self-employed respondents were responsible for over 170,000 sites and charged a median hourly rate of $50. Data results demonstrate the power of job creation through open source software. ^[35]

In January 2012, Wordpress participated in the SOPA internet blackoutday. ^[36]

In April 2012, Pingdom reported that "WordPress completely dominates top 100 blog" and is in use by 49% of the top 100 blogs in the world. This is a huge increase form the 32% that was recorded 3 years ago. ^[37]

^[38]In May 2012, All Things D reported that "Wordpress now powers 70 million sites... and expects to bring in $45 million in revenue this year." The company's success is also reflected in its incredibly low rate of staff attrition - the company currently has 106 employees and has only ever hired 118.

Awards and Recognition[link]

In March 2007, Mullenweg was named #16 of the 50 most important people on the web by PC World,^[39] reportedly the youngest on the list.^[40] In October, Mullenweg acquired the Gravatar service^[41] and was rumored to have turned down a US$200 million offer to buy his company Automattic.^[42]

In 2008, Mullenweg received the Information Technology Innovator Award - presented by the Temple University Fox School of Business Management Information System Deartment to those who have applied Information Technology to create new business opportunities. ^[43]

In May 2009, Mullenweg was named an honorary patron of the University Philosophical Society for his contributions to information technology and culture. Mullenweg told USA Today that Automattic was profitable, had 35 employees, had gotten an office on Pier 38 in San Francisco, and had landed CNN as a client for WordPress.com.^[44].

In November 2009, WordPress was awarded the Overall Best Open Source CMS Award in the 2009 Open Source CMS Awards – marking a shift in the public perception of WordPress, from blog software to full-featured CMS. This award received over 12,000 nominations and more than 23,000 votes across five categories.^[45]

In December 2010, Mullenweg was awarded the Winner of the TechFellow Award in "Product Design and Marketing" ^[46]

In January 2011, Business Insider listed Mullenweg as #3 of their 30 Founders under 30 list for creating Wordpress - the power behind many new startups. ^[47]

In March 2011, Mullenweg was named one of the top 10 most influential people online for changing the face of the internet. ^[48]

In October 2011, Mullenweg made Vanify Fair's Next Establishment prestigious list of rising talents in tech, media, policy, and business.^[49]

In December 2011, Mullenweg was listed in Forbes 30 Under 30 for Social/Mobile for the impact he has made on the blogging world through open source. ^[50]

In May 2012, Mullenweg was listed in Forbes' Most Influential Angel Investors on AngelList.^[51]

Philanthropy[link]

Mullenweg supports a number of philanthropic organizations including Archive.org, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Free Software Foundation, Long Now, and Innocence Project. He is on the board of Grist.org, the founder/director of the WordPress Foundation, and is the only non-company high level sponsor of the Apache Foundation.

Mullenweg is also a member of The Well at the non-profit Charity:Water organization (with which he travel to Ethiopia in February 2012) where he supports providing clean and safe drinking water to people in developing nations. For his 28th birthday he started a campaign which raised over $28,000 for the cause. ^[52]

Notes[link]

External links[link]

• Official website
• with CMS Critic
• Matt at a Web 2.0 panel in the University of San Francisco - Apr 2008
• Interview with Matt Mullenweg
• BlogInterviewer.com Interview with Matt Mullenweg about WordPress
• Interview on Digital Web
• Linux Link Tech Show interview (audio), 2006
• Guardian Unlimited profile, November 4, 2006
• Wizard of WordPress video Part 1 and Part 2 on CNET, May 16, 2007
• Interview with Matt Mullenweg on WPCandy
• Conversation with Matt Mullenweg - Intruders tv video
• Biography of WordPress With Matt Mullenweg

Marc Benioff
Born	(1964-09-25) September 25, 1964 (age 47) San Francisco, California
Organization	Salesforce.com
Net worth	US$2 billion (2012)[1]
Spouse	Lynne Benioff

Marc Russell Benioff (born September 25, 1964) is Chairman & CEO of salesforce.com, a cloud computing company.

Benioff started salesforce.com in March 1999 in a rented San Francisco apartment^[2] and defined its mission as The End of Software. He is “credited with turning the software industry on its head” by using the Internet to “revamp the way software programs are designed and distributed.”^[3][4] He has long evangelized software as a service as the model that would replace traditional enterprise software. He is the creator of the term “platform as a service” and has extended salesforce.com’s reach by allowing customers to build their own applications on the company’s architecture, or in the salesforce.com “cloud”.^[5] He is the author of three books, including the national best seller Behind the Cloud.^[6]

Career[link]

Prior to founding salesforce.com, Benioff was at Oracle Corporation for 13 years in a variety of executive positions in sales, marketing, and product development. At 23, he was named Oracle's Rookie of the Year and three years later he was promoted to vice president, the company's youngest person to hold that title.^[7] Before joining Oracle, Benioff worked as an assembly language programmer at the Macintosh Division of Apple Computer, where he was inspired by the company and its co-founder, Steve Jobs.^[8] While still in high school, he founded Liberty Software, which specialized in microcomputer games, creating and selling games for the Atari system^[4] among others.^[9]

Education[link]

Benioff received a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from the University of Southern California in 1986 where he was a member in the TKE social fraternity. He graduated from Burlingame High School in 1982.^[10]

Influence and honors[link]

In 2010 Fortune named him one of the Smartest 50 People in Tech^[11]as well as one of the Top 50 People in Business.^[12]The San Francisco Business Times named Benioff 2009 Executive of the Year, "for defying the fierce economic downdraft--and taking the lead role in the creation of an industry."^[13]

He was appointed by President George W. Bush as the co-chairman of the President’s Information Technology Advisory Committee and served from 2003–2005, overseeing the publishing of critical reports on health care information technology, cybersecurity, and computational sciences.

Salesforce.com has received many accolades including a Wall Street Journal Technology Innovation award. It has been lauded as one of BusinessWeek’s Top 100 Most Innovative Companies, named No. 7 on The Wired 40, and twice selected as a Top Ten Disrupter by Forbes.^[14] In addition, Forbes named salesforce.com one of America's Best Companies.^[15]

Philanthropy[link]

Benioff pioneered the 1/1/1 Integrated Philanthropic model, by which companies contribute 1 percent of profits, 1 percent of equity, and 1 percent of employee hours back to the communities it serves. Parts of this 1/1/1 model have been adopted by many other companies, including Google.^[16]In 2005, the members of the World Economic Forum named him as one of its Young Global Leaders.^[17] In 2007 the Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy presented Benioff with the Excellence in Corporate Philanthropy Award and in 2008 invited him to become a director of the board.^[18]

In June 2010 Lynne and Marc Benioff announced a $100 Million Gift to UCSF Children's Hospital with the goal of not only seeing the new hospital built but significantly advancing children’s health worldwide.^[19] In 2010, Benioff and his wife were named one of the Top 25 Most Effective Philanthropists by Barron’s.^[20]

Bibliography[link]

• Compassionate Capitalism: How Corporations Can Make Doing Good an Integral Part of Doing Well with Karen Southwick (2004)
• The Business of Changing the World: 20 Great Leaders on Strategic Corporate Philanthropy with Carlye Adler (2006)
• Behind the Cloud: The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Went from Idea to Billion-Dollar Company and Revolutionized an Industry with Carlye Adler (2009)

External links[link]

• Official company biography Salesforce.com website
• San Francisco Chronicle interview
• Sonshi.com interview
• PBS's Newshour with Jim Lehrer cloud computing segment
• President's Information Technology Advisory Committee (PITAC) Report, Revolutionizing Health Care Through Information Technology
• PITAC Report, Cyber Security: A Crisis of Prioritization
• PITAC Report, Computational Science: Ensuring America's Competitiveness
• Book review in The Economist-Mystic Marc's Guide to Success
• UCSF to Get $100 Million for Hospital by Robert A. Guth, The Wall Street Journal

References[link]

Sarah Lacy
Sarah Lacy, taken by Doc Searls at LeWeb3 in Paris
Born	(1975-12-29) December 29, 1975 (age 36)

Sarah Ruth Lacy (born December 29, 1975 in Memphis, Tennessee) is an American technology journalist^[1] and author.

She co-hosts web video show Yahoo! Tech Ticker^[2] and is a columnist at BusinessWeek.^[3] Sarah was also a columnist at TechCrunch until November 19, 2011.^[4] On January 16, 2012 Sarah launched PandoDaily with former TechCrunch bloggers.^[5]

She is noted for an interview with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg at the 2008 South by Southwest Interactive festival during which some members of the audience staged what has been characterized as a revolt.^[6][7] Her response, posted on her Twitter account, was "Seriously screw all you guys. I did my best to ask a range of things."^[8]

She is the author of 2 books: Once You're Lucky, Twice You're Good, which also goes under the title "The Stories of Facebook, Youtube and Myspace", and Brilliant, Crazy, Cocky: "How the Top 1% of Entrepreneurs Profit from Global Chaos".

References[link]