Title
Bass, Carl oral history
Catalog Number
102792770
Type
Moving image
Description
Carl Bass describes his exciting, creative career. He dropped out of Cornell University after 2 years and spent the next 5 years learning how to build boats. After he returned and graduated from Cornell, he started Ithaca Software Graphics which was purchased by Autodesk in 1997. Two years later, he left and formed Buzzsaw which developed software to manage construction projects; it was then also bought by Autodesk. Carol Bartz (CEO of Autodesk) worked out a transition plan with him so that he would be the CEO when she left. He had to manage a major cutback in 2008 when there was a financial recession in the US, but the company had recovered fully when Carl determined that the whole business model and technical approach needed to be modified to a cloud-based pricing plan with design-oriented versus the historic drafting-oriented programs. This meant replacing AutoCAD which led to major Board conflicts. He transitioned to a new CEO over the next few years and has spent his recent years as an advisor to the senior management at Alphabet and tackling projects of interest to himself and a small team of associates who are skilled at building physical products as well as programming.
Date
2022-10-18
Participants
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Bass, Carl, Interviewee
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Fairbairn, Doug, Interviewer
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Plutte, Max, Camera person
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Publisher
Computer History Museum
Place of Publication
Mountain View, CA
Duration
01:53:02
Format
MOV
Category
Oral history
Collection Title
CHM Oral History Collection
Credit
Computer History Museum
