Title
Adams, Stephan and Adams, William oral history
Catalog Number
102792110
Type
Document
Description
African-American brothers and software entrepreneurs Stephan and William Adams created their own software company, Adamation, in the 1980s that blazed a trail writing both shrinkwrapped consumer and custom enterprise applications software for Steve Jobs’ NeXT platform. Today, Stephan is the CEO of a fiber optic company in the U.S. Virgin Islands, while William has created LEAP, a program at Microsoft that helps recruit, mentor, and train young engineers of minority backgrounds to prepare them for success in the technology industry.
In this oral history, the brothers discuss growing up in Orange County, attending college at UC Berkeley and becoming fans of the Macintosh, their experiences starting and running Adamation, first as a NeXT software company and later delving into Taligent. William then discusses his later career at BeOS and then Microsoft, where he created the LEAP program, while Stephan discusses expanding and then shutting down Adamation during the dot.com bust, working with his mentor, African-American executive and investor Michael Fields, restarting Adamation in the 2010s as a 3D printing company, and his current venture in the Virgin Islands. Both brothers also discuss barriers they faced as African-American entrepreneurs and the complex interplay between race and meritocracy in Silicon Valley.
Date
2020-09-25; 2020-09-26
Contributor
|
Adams, Stephan, Interviewee
|
|
Adams, William, Interviewee
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Hsu, Hansen, Interviewer
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Publisher
Computer History Museum
Extent
162 p.
Format
PDF
Category
Transcription
Subject
Placentia; University of California, Berkeley; Jobs, Steve; Macintosh; NeXT; Ingres Corporation; Database; Pinel, Alain; custom application development; Taligent; Gassée, Jean-Louis; Microsoft; LEAP; Virgin Islands; Fields, Michael; Race; Black; African-American; mentorship; software developer; entrepreneur
Collection Title
CHM Oral History Collection
Credit
Computer History Museum
