THEN: Inktomi Founders (1996)
NOW: Ludic Labs CTO; Berkeley Professor of Computer Science
Berkeley professor Eric Brewer and then-grad student Paul Gauthier founded search technology provider Inktomi Corporation, based on their research project. As the search arms race escalated, Yahoo! acquired Inktomi in 2003.
Paul Gauthier now works with a few members of the original Inktomi team as CTO of Ludic Labs, a company building a “social media property” and currently in stealth mode. He also serves as an investor, adviser and board member for a number of Internet startups.
Brewer founded the Federal Search Foundation in 2000 to improve government transparency, and also helped create USA.gov. He still works as a professor and researcher at Berkeley, where he now focuses on technology work in developing countries. His research team's collaboration with Aravind Eye Hospital in India has helped more than 15,000 people regain their eyesight (see clip below).
