The first thing: I am an innovator
At Xanadu I helped create the world's first distributed hypertext system.
At Lucasfilm I invented the MMOG and the avatar. (The contemporary usage of the word "avatar", meaning the graphical representation of one's online persona, is my coinage.)
At AMiX I managed the creation of the world's first online P2P marketplace.
At Electric Communities I architected the infrastructure for the first (and so far only) fully distributed and yet securely extensible virtual world platform.
At Communities.com I built the world's largest online graphical chat system.
At State Software I was a coinventor of AJAX and codiscoverer of the JSON data-interchange format.
At Yahoo! I lead the creation of platforms for reputation management and identity presentation to serve scores of disparate properties and 500+ million users.
Some of the things I have had a hand in creating have become industries unto themselves. And some of the others that haven't, will.
The second thing: I am a consummate technologist
Scalable servers for MMOs and virtual worlds.
Client-server architectures.
Secure, extensible distributed object systems.
High performance, asynchronously coupled distributed systems.
Object-capability programming languages.
Parsers, compilers, translators.
System security, cryptographic protocols, identity management.
Graphical virtual environments.
Electronic commerce. Markets and incentive engineering.
Highly reliable, mission critical systems.
Software reengineering and development process restructuring.
These are my palette.
The most important thing: none of this happens solo
While I will proudly boast of my leading roles in the above accomplishments, they were all the products of teams (some small, some quite large) of very smart and capable people working very, very hard. To deliver successfully on a vision requires not merely a big idea but the ability to bring together a group of talented people around the big idea and to lead them through the often ugly, day-to-day reality of actually making something work. This includes dealing with strong egos, emotional insecurity, ignorance, confusion, technical and financial uncertainty, and the myriad other foibles that accompany any human undertaking. This is what I do.
For more detail, please see my resumé.
Business | Posted by Chip at February 26, 2008 05:43 PM