Jewish High Tech Community

Intel, Apple, and Microsoft did not invent the computer—there was computing before PCs. This talk will highlight some of the colorful people and strange machines from the days when computers were big enough to walk inside, not small enough to wear.

This is a rich 50-year history with many lessons for us today. You will also hear about the Computer History Museum here in Silicon Valley, which is dedicated to preserving and telling the stories of the Information Revolution that is changing civilization forever.

About the Speaker

Len Shustek is chairman of the board of trustees of the Computer History Museum.

In 1979, he co-founded Nestar Systems Inc., an early producer of networked client-server computer systems. In 1986, he co-founded Network General Corporation, a manufacturer of network analysis tools, notably The Sniffer™. The company became Network Associates Inc. after merging with McAfee Associates and PGP. He now teaches occasionally as a consulting professor at Stanford University, and is a partner at VenCraft, a small "angel financing" venture capital fund. He is also a trustee of Polytechnic University.

Shustek's educational background is in computer science (master and doctor of philosophy, Stanford University) by way of physics (bachelor and master of science, Polytechnic University in Brooklyn, NY). After graduation, he joined the faculty at Carnegie-Mellon University as an assistant professor of computer science.