Seven Technology game-changing Executives

Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer speaks during a news conference in New York. 

THEY can be an odd bunch. Have a look at these things you never knew about seven of the world's top technology executives.



1. Jeff Bezos, Amazon

The world's largest online retailer, Amazon's founder Jeff Bezos is the world's newest media mogul after buying the newspaper that broke the Watergate scandal, The Washington Post.

Mr Bezos has wideranging interests. Earlier this year, he recovered the engines of Apollo 11 from the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, at his own expense, and is working with NASA to restore them.
Fun fact: He picked the name 'Amazon' because he wanted something close to the beginning of the alphabet, and the name of the longest river in the world was just exotic enough for him.

Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos speaks in Santa Monica, Calif. Bezos plans to buy The Washington Post for $250 million.

Fun fact: He picked the name 'Amazon' because he wanted something close to the beginning of the alphabet, and the name of the longest river in the world was just exotic enough for him.


2. Nick Robertson, ASOS

ASOS is the world's most-visited online apparel retailer, and media buyer Nick Robertson set it up in 2000 with Quentin Griffiths.

Fashion flows in Mr Robertson's blood. His great-grandfather founded the famous British menswear retailer Austin Reed.

Fun fact: He was inspired to start the business by TV programs such as Friends - the original intent was to give people the ability to buy, for example, a coat they'd seen Rachel wearing on last night's episode. And that's what's behind the name, which stands for As Seen On Screen.


3. Pierre Omidyar, eBay

The French-born Iranian-American founder of eBay first launched the auction site in 1995, with the much-less interesting name of Auction Web.

He changed it in 1997, but wanted to register the site under the name echobay.com (his company was called Echo Bay Technology Group), but it was already taken, so eBay.com was born.

Fun fact: Mr Omidyar and his wife Pam are philanthropists, running a number of not-for-profits, and he set up a news service in their home state of Hawaii in 2010.


4. Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google

The name Google reportedly came about from a misspelling of "googol" which is the name for the number one followed by 100 zeros, although by Google's official account, it was always just a play on words.

Google executives co-founders Sergei Brin and Larry Page look on as CEO Eric Schmidt speaks at a news conference at the annual Allen and Co Media summit in Sun Valley, Idaho, July, 2010.

Before that, the search engine was called BackRub, and run off the Stanford University servers, where the pair met as graduate students.

Fun fact: Page announced in May that he suffers Vocal Chord Paralysis, but said it would not affect his ability to do his job. Brin is reportedly the mystery funder of the synthetic meat burger tested earlier this week.


5. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook

We all know the story of how a university student started a worldwide social revolution from his dorm room but what you might not know is that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg once agreed to an acquisition offer from Yahoo!, but turned it down when the offer price dropped.

Fun fact: The reason the Facebook logo is its instantly-recognisable blue is genetic: Founder Mark Zuckerberg is red-green colour blind. Plus, who said tech entrepreneurs fulfil stereotypes? Zuckerberg had a Star Wars theme for his bar mitzvah.

Facebook founder, Chairman and CEO Mark Zuckerberg rings the Nasdaq opening bell from Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, California.

6. Marissa Mayer, Yahoo!

CEO Marissa Mayer is right at the top when it comes to tech executives. She spent 13 years at Google before she moved to her current position.

She loves spreadsheets. When weighing up her 14 graduate job offers, she developed a matrix, ranking positions on salary, location, chance of success, lifestyle, career trajectory and happiness. She chose Google.

Fun fact: When Yahoo! was in the process of poaching Mayer from Google, she had a special codename: Project Cardinal.


7. Andrew Mason, Groupon

Now the former-CEO of deal website Groupon, founder Andrew Mason shocked the business world when he was given the boot for poor company performance, announcing it to staff online in a memo: "I was fired today". He co-founded the site in 2008, but its share price has doubled since he left in February.

Fun fact: Since his dumping, Mr Mason has been working on an album called Hardly Workin', which he says is in the style of "motivational business music".

Andrew Mason, founder and former chief executive officer of Groupon Inc., speaks at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco, California, U.S., on Wednesday, September 29, 2010. 

Just some insight on this world I call home. Know you know more...

Courtesy for this information goes to The Staff Writers of Herald Sun Technology. Thank you! :)

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