John Gage

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For other persons named John Gage, see John Gage (disambiguation).
John Gage
John Gage
John Gage
Born 1942
Citizenship American
Fields Computer science
Institutions Sun Microsystems
Known for VP at Sun
Co-founder of NetDay

John Burdette Gage (born 1942) was the fifth employee of Sun Microsystems[1], where he is credited with creating the phrase "the network is the computer." [1] He served as Chief Researcher and Vice President of the Science Office for Sun [2],until leaving on June 9, 2008 to join Kleiner Perkins as a partner to help solve global warming.[3][4]He is also best known as one of the co-founders of NetDay in 1995.

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[edit] Background

Gage received his bachelor's degree in 1975 from the University of California, Berkeley[5]. He also attended the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, and the Harvard Business School. While at Berkeley, he was a leader in the anti-war movement and was a delegate for Robert Kennedy in 1968 for the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, representing Berkeley and Alameda County, California. He co-chaired the Robert Kennedy campaign in Alameda County. [6] Gage had worked at Berkeley with Bill Joy, the person largely responsible for the authorship of Berkeley UNIX, also known as BSD, from which springs many modern forms of UNIX, including Solaris, FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD. [7] Gage joined Sun Microsystems in 1982 with Bill Joy and others.

In April, 2002, Gage joined the Markle Taskforce on National Security in the Information Age, whose two reports explore how federal, state and local governments collect, analyze and use information as it relates to national security and homeland defense. Their two reports, when joined with the reports of the 9/11 Commission and the WMD Commission Report, formed the foundation for the 2004-2005 reforms of the intelligence and homeland security communities.

In June, 2008, Gage retired from Sun Microsystems.

[edit] NetDay

President Bill Clinton installing computer cables with Vice President Al Gore on NetDay at Ygnacio Valley High School in Concord, CA. March 9, 1996.

Gage is perhaps also best known as one of the founders of NetDay in 1995 with Michael Kaufman. NetDay "called on high-tech companies to commit resources to schools, libraries, and clinics worldwide so that they could connect to the Internet." [8] It was endorsed by President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore who were active participants in NetDay'96.[9] In 1998, Gage was awarded the ACM Presidential Award by Chuck House, the President of the ACM for his work on NetDay. [10]

[edit] Global warming

In 2008, Gage joined Kleiner Perkins as a venture capitalist along with Al Gore.[8] His goal is to "help solve environmental problems, specifically global warming. He will focus mainly on "green" technology investments, a growing area for Kleiner, which last month announced a new $500 million fund to target large, green-tech companies. Kleiner has backed "clean" companies in areas such as electric vehicles, biofuels and others."[3]

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ a b Stefanie Olsen (2008-06-09). "Sun's John Gage joins Al Gore in clean-tech investing". CNET. http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9964131-7.html. 
  2. ^ "The Technology Chronicles  : John Gage Leaves Sun Microsystems To Become A Venture Capitalist". 2008-06-09. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/detail?blogid=19&entry_id=27170. 
  3. ^ a b Buckman, Rebecca (June 10, 2008). "Sun's Gage to Join Kleiner Perkins". Wall Street Journal. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121304640237058521.html?mod=googlenews_wsj. Retrieved on 2008-06-12. 
  4. ^ John Gage Joins Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers as Partner
  5. ^ "Haas NewsWire, February 20, 2001". Haas School of Business and the Regents of the University of California. 2001-02-20. http://www.haas.berkeley.edu/groups/newspubs/haasnews/archives/hn022001.html. 
  6. ^ John Gage: Sun's voice to the outside world
  7. ^ BSD Unix: Power to the people, from the code
  8. ^ a b Olsen, Stephanie (June 9, 2008). "Sun's John Gage joins Al Gore in clean-tech investing". http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-9964131-54.html. Retrieved on 2008-06-12. 
  9. ^ Rubenstein, Steve (March 9, 1996). "Clinton, Gore in Concord Today for NetDay: 20,000 volunteers wire computers at California schools". San Francisco Chronicle. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/1996/03/09/MN59762.DTL. Retrieved on 2008-06-12. 
  10. ^ Policy '98: Implications for SIGCHI

[edit] Publications

  • Information Technology and Economic Development, in Economic Development, 1999, Oxford University Press.

[edit] External links

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