Denis R. Coleman ‘68, SM ‘70, cofounded Symantec, the maker of Norton antivirus software, but he didn’t stick around to watch it become the fourth-largest software company in the world. He had other companies to launch. “I’m a great team player, but I like to change teams,” says Coleman, who since 1978 has helped start 14 companies. And most are still going strong.
“The most fun was the spell checker,” he says. Coleman developed the first spell checker for a microcomputer and marketed it in 1980 through a company called Innovative Software while his day job was working for a consulting firm. “That launched me in entrepreneurship,” he says.
When Coleman invented a better way to check spelling, he also found a better way to make a living. The company that grew into Symantec started in his living room in 1983. He wrote code and led a team of developers who were creating the company’s founding QA technology; then he left the venture in 1988. “I helped them get going and then let them do their thing,” he says. And that’s what he continues to do today. His companies have developed pioneering technology in such diverse fields as optical character recognition, targeted Internet advertising, social-networking software, and, most recently, biotechnology.
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