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Paul Buchheit – Creator and Lead Developer of Gmail

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There is no denying in the fact that each of us has used Gmail at least once in our lives and, that fact is proved by the current number of Gmail users, i.e., more than 900 million users. Gmail was launched in 2004, and the lead developer, behind this widely used email platform, is Paul Buchheit. Paul Buchheit is the 23rd employee of Google but, has played a pivotal role in the development of many Google products, in his few years of career with Google.

Paul Buchheit
Image Source: Facebook

Early Life

Paul Buchheit was born on 6 November 1976, in Webster, New York. He did his schooling from Webster Thomas High School. He was a brilliant student and always topped the class every year. Later, he entered Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio to pursue a degree in Science followed by a PhD (Honors) degree. During his college, he was in the rowing team of the college.

Career

As soon as Buchheit completed his education, he started his internship at Microsoft, in 1995. In 1998, he joined at Intel and after one year he became the 23rd employee at Google.

He worked with Google for nearly 7 years and, had become an influential part of Google’s numerous revolutionary programs, including Google Adsense. He also gave the suggestion of the motto, “Don’t Do Evil”, that was practised as the code of conduct within Google for many years.

In 2006, Paul Buchheit left the job at Google and launched a real-time social aggregator named FriendFeed which was a huge success. But later in 2009, it was acquired by Facebook through a private transaction. He also worked for Facebook for a few years and left the job in 2010, to start an investment company named Y Combinator.

Paul Buchheit always encourages startup companies saying that startups are more than simply a clever way to make money. Before Y Combinator, he had already invested in 83 startups through Angel Investment, and with Y Combinator he is supporting many budding companies with their startups.

Founding Gmail

Before Gmail was launched, the various email service providers, like Microsoft, had given a limited storage of 4 MB. According to Paul Buchheit, every email service was getting worse instead of getting better. And the lesser storage provided by every email platforms grabbed his attention. The planning of creating Gmail was started many years before it was announced. The development of Gmail started in 2001 and in 2004, Gmail was launched, with increased storage of 1000 MB of storage, fast dynamic interface, quick and accurate search including the concept of organised emails. Even Mr Doerr from Microsoft gave a statement that Gmail was like a wakeup call for them.

Personal Life

Paul married his girlfriend April Buchheit on 10 August 2002. Currently, he is living with his wife and two children in California.

Satya Nadella – CEO of Microsoft

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India is a land of talented people who are shining in the top positions of some of the top Tech companies. Microsoft, too, found a promising and energetic leader in Satya Nadella, when they were hunting for the replacement of its longtime CEO Steve Ballmer. After searching for about five months, Microsoft’s board members finalized Nadella as he had already showcased unbelievable progress in the other departments. When Microsoft was in crisis, facing stern competition from other top companies, like Apple and Samsung, Nadella sought a way out to keep Microsoft in business.

Early Life

Satya Nadella was born on 19th August 1967, to an IAS officer Nadella Yugandhar and was brought up in Ananthapur, Andhra Pradesh. He completed high school from the Hyderabad Public School and further went to Manipal Institute of Technology to pursue Electrical Engineering in 1988. His interests lied in Computer Science but Electrical Engineering was a promising branch at the university so he took the course and soon found his true passion.

After completing his degree, he moved to the US at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee to pursue Masters in Computer Science, in the year 1990. Further, Nadella also pursued MBA from the University of Chicago and landed his first job at Sun Microsystems and, in 1992, joined Microsoft.

Journey within Microsoft

In his early period at Microsoft, Satya led crucial projects, related to cloud computing, and soon gained the name as a leader, with a potential to spread the technology and business, in transforming Microsoft’s products. He comprehensively worked on Windows NT, an operating system made primarily for business people.

Satya Nadella
Image Source: www.flickr.com

His vast, 22 years of experience, working in Microsoft has allowed him to know the company to its roots. He has served on about five different roles in the company and finally reached the highest position – Chief Executive Officer. In the year 1999, Nadella was promoted to Vice President of Microsoft bCentral and General Manager for Microsoft’s Commerce Platforms group.

Nadella was responsible to lead the growth of numerous Microsoft products like Microsoft Office Small Business, BizTalk Server, Commerce Server, and Dynamics and ERP servers too. Apart from these products, he has lead Microsoft to invest in the technologies like Digital Rights Management (DRM) and Interactive Television (ITV).

From 2000 to 2010, Nadella served on three different positions including Corporate Vice President of Microsoft Business Solutions, then in 2007 as Senior Vice President of R & D for Online Services Division, and then to President of Server and Tools business. Before being chosen for Microsoft’s CEO position Nadella served as the Executive Vice President of Cloud and Enterprise Group which supplied infrastructure to Microsoft’s search engine Bing, Xbox Live Broadband gaming network, and Office-365 services.

Microsoft’s transition from just software based company to cloud computing services helped it grow faster than ever. Nadella met with start-ups understanding their needs and simultaneously making Microsoft more flexible to fulfill those needs. Most of the clients today prefer rent-based applications rather than running software themselves. And that is what Microsoft next ventured into making a huge profit.

Why was Satya Nadella the Perfect Choice?

When it could have been anyone leading the company there is a strong reason that Microsoft’s board members chose to give Satya Nadella the baton. When in 2014, Steve Ballmer declared his retirement from Microsoft, the company was also in planning to shift from software giant to Devices and Services Company. Microsoft had already acquired Nokia and developed Surface Tablet. So, naturally, the company was on a lookout for the candidate who helmed the experience of both sides.

And when it came down to choices, Satya fitted the profile very well. As he had lead various projects including Windows Server, Windows Azure, System Center, SQL Server, etc. and the Software development tools. With such a vast portfolio and years of experience made him an ideal candidate to lead the company and take it out of the crisis, it was facing, due to the competitors like Apple and Google. Finally, on 4th February 2014, Satya Nadella was declared as the new CEO of Microsoft succeeding Steve Ballmer.

Personal Life

Satya Nadella is a big fan of cricket and grew up watching and playing the game in Andhra Pradesh. He mentions that the leadership and team management skill he possesses is the results of being part of his school cricket team.

In 2015, he was awarded ‘Champion of Change Award’ by then President Barack Obama. He currently lives in Bellevue, Washington with his wife Anupama and three children.

Ren Zhengfei – The Founder of Huawei

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Revolutionary ideas are changing the way we live (of living) our lives. Humans have surpassed their genius and brought innovations which are making this world a better place. As they say, there’s no age limit for you to take charge of your life and invent something that would bring a revolution in the world. While most of today’s innovative start-ups are coming from youngsters the story of Huawei is something entirely different. The Chinese tech giant came into existence when its founder was in his forties. His determination led him to start a company which now is valued over $140 billion.

Early Life

Born on October 25th, 1944 in Anshun, China, Ren Zhengfei to a school president father and schoolteacher mother. His father worked as an accounting clerk in a government arms factory. Ren completed his secondary school and went on to attend Chongqing University in 1960. From there, he joined People’s Liberation Army research institute, to work as a military technologist in the IT unit. Due to his innovations and achievements, he was recognized at various levels and was selected to attend the National Science Conference in 1978 as a PLA delegate.

He retired from the army in 1983 after nine years when the Chinese government discontinued the whole engineering unit. After retiring, Ren went on to work with Shenzhen South Sea Oil Corporation. But soon left the job in 1987 as it was not as satisfactory work as per his talent. By the time he left Shenzhen, he had capital of about sh10 million.

The Beginning of Huawei

Ren founded Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd the same year as he left Shenzhen. With the initial investment of 21,000 yuan (about $5000) Huawei’s first business was to sell telephone exchange equipment from Hong Kong. He took the position of Chief Executive Officer and lead the company to make it the world’s third top smartphone selling brand after Apple and Samsung.

Ren Zhengfei
Image Source: www.flickr.com

Huawei focuses on manufacturing different components required for the electronic gadgets. Almost every electronic gadget is made with components made by Huawei. Apart from smartphones and small components, Huawei dominates the market in producing the highest mobile devices like routers, broadband, and 4G network devices. Huawei became the first firm to roll out 5G network across the world.

Ownership

Unlike other big firms, Huawei’s ownership is held by its 85,000 employees. All the employees hold a percentage of the company’s share. That leaves only 1.4% share stake with Ren Zhengfei valued at $450 million, as of 2010. Ren still remains the founder of Huawei and is respected by the employees.

Joe Kelly, Huawei’s VP for international media relations, says, “Zhengfei relinquished ownership of the firm to employees to guarantee its continuity and attract talent.” The company’s campus at Shenzhen in Guangdong province is surrounded with trees and makes a beautiful sight for the workers.

Unique Working Style

Huawei is probably the only company to follow a unique leadership style. Most of the decisions are made by the engineers in the company. Company’s day to day activities are run by three different executives, each one of them retains the position of CEO every six months on a rotational basis. Ren introduced this strategy which was inspired by the migration of the birds. Kelly further added, “Birds migrate in a ‘V’ formation, and engineering shows that the bird at the apex takes the heaviest burden.”
ally, this rotation system helps the company from facing bad politics. Often workers in a corporation tend to follow a certain person, which might create an imbalance among the company’s workforce. But, the rotation system gives equal chance to each one of the leaders to show their talent and take the company forward.

Investment in Research

Huawei is an active investor in innovative research projects and invests 10% of its annual revenue into R&D. The research department holds over 10,000 patents and keeps innovating each year than the previous one.

Ren is an active supporter of Communist Party of China. The company is growing rapidly and Forbes has estimated Zhengfei’s wealth at $2.1 billion. Although he is a billionaire, Zhengfei prefers a low profile lifestyle and even travels on the public transport. He lives with his daughter Cathy Meng who is also the CFO of Huawei.

William Ding Lei

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“Life is just like chocolates with liquor and you never know what’s inside”, said a man who dreamt of being an excellent mechanical engineer and is now the richest person in China. Being the most populated country, China also offers numerous opportunities to individuals to invent a product or a service that millions of people can use on the go. William Ding , the founder of NetEase, did just the same. Keeping money as his secondary target Ding aimed for something extraordinary that would evolve China.

Early Life
Born on 1st October, 1971 in Ningbo, Zhejiang, China, Ding was interested in electronics from the early age of 13. And at 16 he managed to assemble electronic parts to make six transistor radios. Ding earned a bachelor’s degree from Chengdu College of Electronic Science and Technology. Just after graduation he took a job as an engineer in the local state department. He quit that job soon to join Sybase in Guangzhou. After working there for a while William Ding decided to go on his own and start a company.

The Birth of NetEase
It was 1997 when Ding finally started his own venture with dozen other employees. The company, for first two years, focused on development of Internet applied software, one of its kind in China, a bilingual e-mail system. The e-mail system quickly earned popularity and became buzz of the town. William Ding then conceptualized and brought the company into new light by hosting a search engine platform and microblogging on NetEase. The next thing they knew was NetEase becoming the largest internet portal in China.

NetEase then ventured into their most profitable launch ever – multiplayer gaming. NetEase’s gaming portal has thousands of massively popular games one of which is World of Warcraft. Millions of players from China as well as the whole world visit NetEase to play these multiplayer games. This web portal has made Ding Lei the richest man in China with billions of net worth. Popularly known as the ‘video game billionaire’ in China Ding Lei has made it to the top by creating opportunities for himself. In one of his interviews Ding Lei said, “Smart guys seize opportunities and never let them slip between their fingers. And those who think themselves weak always wait for opportunities.” The engineering genius considered Albert Einstein and Thomas Edison as his heroes. His intellect and love for reading always made him stand out among his classmates. During his college he chose to read as many IT books as possible from the school library rather than to focus on getting high marks. Ding Lei often raised questions which would be so unique that they sounded weird.

His constant reading and practicing what he believed led him to write an entire software code unlike his other classmates. He also quit good paying job to pursue his dream.

Ding Lei’s Goals
Lei considers NetEase as a responsibility towards users, clients, investors, and employees. His aim was to make gaming enjoyable, educational and believes that the next decade will see a massive rise in e-business. William Ding believes in talent and spends both time and money to upgrade skills his employees through training. He prefers to personally recruit people from his own alma mater and other colleges and universities.

Apart from the internet business Ding Lei plans to bring the farmers who have lost their farms for factories back into business. He plans to invest in organic farming to produce quality food. He can, thus, bring some of the country’s capital towards countryside. His another share for the Chinese people is to make them literate. Lei has appointed a team who translated American college lessons into Mandarin with subtitles.

Despite of his busy schedule, Lei has particular time devoted for his study. He likes to read as many books on IT as possible and to increase his knowledge base. In 2004 he was awarded as the ‘Technology Change Agent for Innovative use of Technology’. He lives in Guangzhou with his wife Wang Xunfang.

Story of Lee Byung-chul- Founder of Samsung

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An entrepreneur is a person who has a vision that could change millions of lives and help the country grow economically at the same time. This vision brings creative ideas and creates employment opportunities helping the society prosper.

Countries like USA, China, India, South Korea and many more have made a significant contribution to the global industrial sector. When it comes to electronics and plastic market, China tops the list, top apparel, software and hardware brands are from US and South Korea is famous for electronics and automobiles industry. One man from South Korea changed the entire electronics and smartphones market when his company called Samsung came to the market with their world changing technology. The founder Lee Byung-chul’s Samsung has seen many crests and troughs all these years and today stands as a symbol of growth, innovation, and prosperity.

Early Life
Born on 12th February, 1910 in Uiryeong County in South Korea Lee was the only son of a wealthy family. His family was of landowners and left behind huge wealth for him to inherit. Chull attended Waseda University in Tokyo but left his degree incomplete. Initially, he used his inherited wealth to start a rice mill. Although he dedicated himself in this first business it failed to float and sunk without generating any major profits.
Lee Byung-chul
After the failure of his first business Chul established an export business in Daegu on 1st March, 1938 and named the company Samsung Trading Co. The company exported varieties of goods and eatables like fish, vegetables, and fruits to the regions of China. The company saw a major boom in growth as it was supplying goods throughout Korea and even to other countries by 1945. The company was then shifted to Seoul in 1947. Samsung Trading Co. was considered to be one of the ten largest trading companies during that time. But, Chul had to face another difficulty. This time, the war. As the war broke out Chul had to shift his company to a safer location in Busan around 1950.

But this shifting came as a boon for Chul. The massive influx of US army troops and the military equipment boosted his trucking business for the next year and a half. Chul also started a sugar refinery which saw the light of success quite early. After the war, he went on to set up a wool factory in 1954 in Daegu which later became the largest wool factory in the country. As the business was growing Chul ventured into various other sectors like finance, insurance, retail, and security.

Chul had a strong belief in industrialization and wanted Samsung group to become leader in every sector. It was in the 1960s that Samsung ventured into electronics industry to take over the market just like other sectors. Samsung focused on creating innovative products and soon the company released their first product – a black and white television. By the mid and late 1960s Samsung already had six divisions focused on departments like semiconductors, telecommunications, hardware, etc.

Success in the Electronics Business
In 1980, Samsung acquired Hanguk Jeonja Tongsin, a major company in telecommunications. This was the same year when the company had its own electronics division under Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. unit. The company then started producing telephones, fax machines, and various other electronic devices on a large-scale.

The founder of Samsung, Lee Byung Chul, died on 19th November, 1987 in Seoul, South Korea. But the company kept following his philosophy of large-scale expansion. The company expanded as never before setting up their plants in New York, Texas, London, etc. Samsung’s construction company garnered major projects including that of the Burj Khalifa in Malaysia.

Major Successes
Samsung raced on the top of the list as the number one memory chip production company in the whole world in 1992. Soon it also acquired second position, just behind Intel, in the chip-making industry. The year of 1995 came with a huge success as Samsung made first LCD screen revolutionizing the television hardware industry.

Samsung accounts for 15% of South Korea’s GDP (as of 2012). In the same year the company’s total revenue was a whopping $265 billion and earned profits of $26 billion. Samsung has employed over 425,000 people providing a good life for people all over the world.

Blake Ross – The Founder of Firefox

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Achieving great heights of success in a young age is not everyone’s cup of tea. A passion for work and dedication towards it is demanded rigorously. The technological evolution has made young minds sharp and enthusiastic to create more and more customer service based applications. For example, one of the most used and most preferred internet browser Mozilla Firefox is the application developed by one such genius youngster Blake Aaron Ross.

Early Life
Born on 12th June, 1985 in Miami, Florida, United States, Blake was raised by his highly qualified parents in the Key Biscayne area. His mother is a psychologist and father is a lawyer. Blake’s interest in software development arose at quite an early age. He completed his high school from Gulliver Preparatory School in Miami and graduated in 2003 from Stanford University. Blake’s first individual project was his first website named America Online which he developed at the mere age of 10. As his interest grew through the Sim City show Blake started creating small video games. And while he was graduating he simultaneously worked for Mozilla in California.

Blake’s interest in programming took a new leap when Netscape became open-source and he joined as an intern at the age of 15.

The Firefox Project
The name ‘Blake Ross’ is known as the name behind creating Mozilla Firefox web browser. Along with his two colleagues Dave Hyatt and Joe Hewitt, Ross conceived the idea of developing a user-friendly web browser. The idea was born when Ross and Hewitt were working on an open-source project. Soon, they put this idea into programming codes and developed the first version of Firefox and released it to the world on 9th November, 2004. Blake Ross was just 19 when the first version was released.

The first version of Firefox drew massive attention worldwide. Due to its user-friendly interface Firefox instantly became popular among the people and just within a month of its launch the application was downloaded 100 million times. The project saw it’s yet another success just within a year when Firefox became the most preferred web browser all over the world. He also published a book named ‘Firefox for Dummies’ on January 11, 2006.

A Parallel Venture
Along with the massive success of Firefox Ross kept working on his newer creative ideas to make internet more accessible and simple place. One such ideas Ross worked on was his startup named Parakey. Through this new user interface Ross aimed at bridging the gap between web and desktop. Parakey was developed by Ross along with Hewitt in 2006. Parakey was featured on the cover page of IEEE Spectrum Magazine in November, 2006 issue. Just a year later, i.e. in 2007, Facebook saw the potential in Parakey and purchased it for a muli-million price.

Driving Force Behind Firefox
From his early childhood interest in programming, which eventually led to the development of world’s most preferred web browser, Blake Ross has come a long way. The main driving factor behind the development of Firefox was his experiences during the internship at Netscape. He used to face lot of troubles in the browser he used to work on. And, other driving force was his mother’s frustrated experience with internet explorer. Ross then thought of developing something small yet powerful and simple to use. And, thus, was born Firefox.

Blake Ross’ Profile and Achievements
Blake’s constant working on newer ideas created a buzz among the companies. Soon after Parakey was purchased by Facebook, Blake Ross joined Facebook in 2007 and worked as Director of Product till 2013. He resigned from Facebook in 2013 to focus on his other interests. Ross has received multiple renowned awards and nominations for top magazines including the nomination for top Rave award of Wired magazine, Renegade of the year, etc. In 2005 Ross was listed on Rolling Stone magazines hot list.

Ross, from his experiences in the industry he works in, wrote a fan fiction original screenplay for HBO’s sitcom Silicon Valley. The TV series grabbed a lot of attention and went on to become popular among the audiences worldwide.

Personal Life
Ross, 30, found out back in 2016 that he has an extremely rare condition known as aphantasia. This condition takes away the ability to visualize anything. Ross wrote;

“I have never visualized anything in my entire life. I can’t “see” my father’s face or a bouncing blue ball, my childhood bedroom or the run I went on ten minutes ago. I thought ‘counting sheep’ was a metaphor. I’m 30 years old and I never knew a human could do any of this.”