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Al Vezza was a computer science professor[ citation needed ] and a founder of Infocom, one of the earliest computer game companies.
Infocom was a software company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts that produced numerous works of interactive fiction. They also produced one notable business application, a relational database called Cornerstone.
Vezza was the assistant director[ citation needed ] of MIT's Laboratory for Computer Science (LCS) and in charge of LCS's Dynamic Modeling (DM) group in the late 1970s when group members Dave Lebling, Marc Blank, Tim Anderson, and Bruce Daniels began creating the game that would become Zork . By 1979, many of the graduating students in the DM group were interested in continuing to work together by establishing a company, and Vezza, who had long wanted to bring together his former students in a commercial venture, agreed to help fund the company, named Infocom.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1861 in response to the increasing industrialization of the United States, MIT adopted a European polytechnic university model and stressed laboratory instruction in applied science and engineering. The institute is traditionally known for its research and education in the physical sciences and engineering, but more recently in biology, economics, linguistics and management as well. MIT is often ranked among the world's top five universities.
Peter David Lebling is an interactive fiction game designer (implementor) and programmer who has worked at various companies, including Infocom and Avid.
Marc Blank is an American game developer and software engineer. He is best known as part of the team that created one of the first commercially successful text adventure computer games, Zork.
Vezza became a member of the board of directors of Infocom when it was incorporated on June 22, 1979. While the computer game business brought Infocom quick success, Vezza and others on the board were not convinced that computer games would remain a viable market over the long haul and advocated a move into business software. As Infocom began seeking out venture capital firms to invest in the company, the board decided that an actual CEO would be an asset in attracting investment and that an experienced project leader like Vezza would attract more confidence from firms than the younger game designers. As a result, Vezza was named CEO of the company and took on that role beginning in January 1984.
Venture capital (VC) is a type of private equity, a form of financing that is provided by firms or funds to small, early-stage, emerging firms that are deemed to have high growth potential, or which have demonstrated high growth. Venture capital firms or funds invest in these early-stage companies in exchange for equity, or an ownership stake, in the companies they invest in. Venture capitalists take on the risk of financing risky start-ups in the hopes that some of the firms they support will become successful. Because startups face high uncertainty, VC investments do have high rates of failure. The start-ups are usually based on an innovative technology or business model and they are usually from the high technology industries, such as information technology (IT), clean technology or biotechnology.
As CEO, Vezza was responsible for guiding Infocom's new foray into business software, and oversaw Infocom during a period when rising development costs related to the Cornerstone database project, and feuding between the game and business software sides of the business, created a great strain on the company. In 1985, the failure of Cornerstone to carve out a place in the business world, combined with flat game sales, led to a period of financial difficulty and layoffs. Finally, in 1986 Infocom was sold to rival game company Activision and Vezza stepped down as CEO.
Cornerstone is a relational database for MS-DOS by Infocom. It was widely hailed upon its release in 1985 for its ease of use, but is generally considered one of the leading factors in the demise of the company.
Activision Publishing, Inc. is an American video game publisher based in Santa Monica. It currently serves as the publishing business for its parent company, Activision Blizzard, and consists of several subsidiary studios. As of January 2017, Activision is one of the largest third-party video game publishers in the world and was the top publisher for 2016 in the United States.
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Interactive fiction, often abbreviated IF, is software simulating environments in which players use text commands to control characters and influence the environment. Works in this form can be understood as literary narratives, either in the form of Interactive narratives or Interactive narrations. These works can also be understood as a form of video game, either in the form of an adventure game or role-playing game. In common usage, the term refers to text adventures, a type of adventure game where the entire interface can be "text-only", however, graphical text adventure games, where the text is accompanied by graphics still fall under the text adventure category if the main way to interact with the game is by typing text. Some users of the term distinguish between interactive fiction, known as "Puzzle-free", that focuses on narrative, and "text adventures" that focus on puzzles.
Zork is one of the earliest interactive fiction computer games, with roots drawn from the original genre game Colossal Cave Adventure. The first version of Zork was written between 1977 and 1979 using the MDL programming language on a DEC PDP-10 computer. The authors—Tim Anderson, Marc Blank, Bruce Daniels, and Dave Lebling—were members of the MIT Dynamic Modelling Group.
Six Apart Ltd., sometimes abbreviated 6A, is a software company known for creating the Movable Type blogware, TypePad blog hosting service, and Vox. The company also is the former owner of LiveJournal. Six Apart is headquartered in Tokyo and is planning to open an office in New York. The name is a reference to the six-day age difference between its married co-founders, Ben and Mena Trott.
MDL is a programming language, a descendant of the language Lisp. Its initial purpose was to provide high level language support for the Dynamic Modeling Group at Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT) Project MAC. It was initially developed in 1971 on a PDP-10 computer on a time-sharing operating system named Incompatible Timesharing System (ITS). It later ran on TENEX and TOPS-20.
Leather Goddesses of Phobos is an interactive fiction computer game written by Steve Meretzky and published by Infocom in 1986. Like many other Infocom titles, it was released for Amiga, Apple II, Macintosh, Atari 8-bit family, Atari ST, Commodore 64, and MS-DOS. This game was Infocom's first "sex farce" and featured selectable "naughtiness" levels ranging from "tame" to "lewd." It was one of five top-selling Infocom titles to be re-released in Solid Gold versions including in-game hints. It was Infocom's twenty-first game.
William Murray "Trip" Hawkins III is an American entrepreneur and founder of Electronic Arts, The 3DO Company, and Digital Chocolate.
Roland "Roel" Pieper is a Dutch IT-entrepreneur.
Asia Pacific College (APC) was established in 1991 as a non-profit joint venture between IBM Philippines and the SM Foundation. It was envisioned as a learning institution that produces graduates who fulfill information technology industry demands.
Sohaib Abbasi is a Pakistani-American business executive, computer scientist and philanthropist. He is the former chairman and chief executive of Informatica having served in the roles from 2004 until 2015. During his tenure as CEO, Abbasi helped to grow the company's revenue from $219 million to over $1 billion, and to increase the value of stock by over 800 percent.
Genpact is a professional services firm headquartered in New York City, New York.
John Riccitiello is an American executive who serves as chief executive officer (CEO) of Unity Technologies. Previously, he served as CEO, chief operating officer and president of Electronic Arts, and co-founded private equity firm Elevation Partners in 2004. Riccitiello has served on several company boards, including those of the Entertainment Software Association, the Entertainment Software Rating Board, the Haas School of Business and the USC School of Cinematic Arts.
John De Margheriti is an Italian-born Australian electrical engineer, software developer and entrepreneur. De Margheriti is widely seen as a founding 'father' of Australia's video games industry and Australia's most experienced interactive entertainment business executive.
S. D. Shibulal, better known as Shibulal, is an Indian business executive. He was the Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of Infosys, and one of its seven founding members. He stepped down from the post of CEO and MD on 31 July 2014 and was succeeded by the first non-founder CEO of Infosys Dr. Vishal Sikka. He is the President of the Infosys Science Foundation for the year 2015.
Dr. Bruce Daniels is an American Hydro-Climatologist, business executive and computer programmer. His name is part of the Silicon Valley lore of the founding of the personal computer and the revolution that brought the information age into ordinary people's homes through user-friendly interfaces.
Mark Tebbe is an Adjunct Professor of Entrepreneurship at the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business where he helped develop and co-teaches the Entrepreneurial Discovery class having served in this role since 2011. In addition to his appointment as Adjunct Professor, Mark is an Entrepreneur-in-Residence in Booth's Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation where he mentors students and advises faculty in developing technological business techniques. He is an active investor and mentor to various companies in the startup ecosystem as part of Hyde Park Angels.
Darren T. Kimura is an American businessman, inventor, and investor. He is best known as the inventor of Micro Concentrated solar power (CSP) technology otherwise known as MicroCSP.