11 Geek Visionaries Who

Created Technology We Can't

Live Without
• Apple CEO Steve Jobs said that people often don't know
what they want until you show them. Today, it's
impossible to imagine life without an iPod or a cell
phone, but there was a time when the technologies we
depend on so heavily didn't even exist. Except in the
minds of visionaries.

• Like much in life, new technology is often a team effort

and it's difficult to point to just one person as
"responsible." Still, we're calling out a few folks who were
instrumental in creating technology that today, we can't
imagine living without.
Alan Kay: The Laptop
Alan Kaycan be credited in the late
'60s with the visionary prototype of
a small, powerful computer, or one
of the first usable laptops.
"I...started thinking about what
would it be like for millions of
people to have one of these
machines," he later wrote. The
technology to build his idea did not
yet exist, so he concentrated on
other things such as software
design and the creation of easy-to-
use programs, which led to such
advances as graphical interfaces.
But his notebook computer
prototype was the inspiration later
used by Apple and others.
 Ray Tomlinson: E-mail
Thank Ray Tomlinson for the
plethora of e-mails you get
every day. He created a way
to send electronic mail over
a network in 1971, "mostly
because it seemed like a
neat idea." Tomlinson is also
responsible for the @ sign in
e-mail. He chose to combine
the user and host names
divided by the @ sign
(user@host) that is the
standard for e-mail
addresses to this day.
Martin Cooper: The Cell Phone
You can thank Martin Cooper,
now 72 and CEO of ArrayComm,
for your 24/7 lifeline. In 1972, he
created the first cellular phone,
which weighed in at a whopping
two pounds. (Ten years would
pass before cell phones broke the
one-pound barrier.) His
inspiration? Watching Captain
Kirk use his communicator on the
TV show Star Trek.
Mike Lazaridis: The BlackBerry
Mike Lazaridis founded RIM when
he was still a student at the
University of Waterloo, Canada, in
1984. The company was first a
maker of pagers, but Lazaridis
drove technology and research
within the company to create what
was to become your CrackBerry.
The BlackBerry 850 debuted in
1998 and opened the eyes of
corporate America to the joys of
wireless communication. Even
nontechies found it easy to use:
The 850 featured a QWERTY
keyboard and server software that
made e-mail effortlessly appear.
"My life is about making ideas
happen," says Lazaridis in an
Amex ad. CrackBerry addicts are
indeed glad.
 Vint Cerf: The Internet
Vint Cerf, often referred to as a
"father of the Internet," earned
the designation for his work in
the late '60s and '70s as
codesigner, along with Robert
Kahn, of TCP/IP protocols
(which became the standard for
all Internet communication) and
the architecture of the Internet.
"We were just rank amateurs,"
Cerf recalled in 2000, "and we
were expecting that some
authority would finally come
along and say, 'Here's how we
are going to do it.' And nobody
ever came along." Cerf's vision
now plays a key role at Google
where he is vice president and
chief Internet evangelist
 Bill Gates: Standardized
Software and Operating
Systems
Love him or hate him, Bill Gates
has had one of the most
pervasive influences on the
technology industry. He quit
Harvard University in his junior
year at the age of 20 to devote
himself to the company he had
begun earlier in 1975 with
childhood friend Paul Allen. The
two worked night and day to
complete a version of BASIC for
the Altair 8800 microcomputer.
Soon they had licensed their
product and renamed their
company MicroSoft. His vision
paid off: By the end of the year,
the company recorded more than
$1 million in sales. The rest—as
they say—is history
 Steve Jobs: Sexy Computers and
Your iPod
Quirky, dictatorial and resilient, Steve
Jobs' contributions to the personal
(and aesthetic) side of technology
are legendary. "A lot of times, people
don't know what they want until you
show them," he once said. True to
his words, he founded Apple in 1976
along with Steve Wozniak, to begin
selling the Apple I. In 1984, he
debuted the Macintosh, a
groundbreaking computer meant for
ordinary people. It featured simple
navigation and the equally
groundbreaking (and intuitive)
mouse. Seventeen years later, he
unveiled the first iteration of the iPod.
In his "spare" time, he put his mark
on animated movies with his
acquisition and leadership of Pixar
 Larry Page and Sergey Brin:
Google
For two guys who didn't like each
other when they first met, Larry Page
(left photo) and Sergey Brin sure got
a lot done. The two founded Google
in late 1998, admidst skyrocketing
stocks of Yahoo, Excite, Lycos, and
Infoseek. But their new company
quickly became king, due largely to its
focus on accurate search results and
ease of use and navigation. Google
also boasted fast loading speeds and
less spam being served with search
results. Their contributions extended
beyond technology: Page and Brin
put such a value on employees and
their work contributions that Google
became one of the coolest companies
(techie or otherwise) to work for
 Dr. Bradford W. Parkinson
and Dr. Ivan A. Getting: GPS
The old joke that guys won't ask
for directions is falling by the
wayside: Because of in-car
GPS, they don't have to. Thank
Dr. Bradford W. Parkinson (left
photo) and the late Dr. Ivan A.
Getting for making it look like
you know where you're going.
Lots of people had a hand in
developing GPS, but Getting
provided instrumental support
leadership in its development
and Parkinson was responsible
from program start to space
operation for both leading the
final concept and bringing to
practice the satellite based,
worldwide navigation system
known as NAVSTAR GPS