Michiel Mol

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Michiel Mol (born August 4, 1969) is a Dutch businessman and the director of the Spyker Formula One team.

[edit] Biography

Michiel Mol grew up with a wealthy family, his father, Jan Mol, had set up his own Software company in 1966 called Volmac; the company itself turned out to be a huge success and Jan Mol sold his company in 1992 to CAP Gemini. Jan Mol's fortune is currently estimated at around $500m.

Michiel himself went into the software business, graduating from the University of Leiden in Computer Science. In 1993, Mol set up Lost Boys with several of his friends, developing software for CD-ROM market. With the rapid growth of the internet, the company then started making Internet software as well as game development. Mol had his first venture into Formula One in 1999, when he and his company backed Jos Verstappen. Lost Boys then merged with Swedish company, IconMedialab.

Mol remained on the board but kept the Lost Boys Games division and established a new company called Media Republic, aiming to use new technology to market products. Lost Boys Games was transformed into Guerrilla Games, notable for developing the Playstation 2 game Killzone, during 2004 and a year later it was sold to the Sony Company.

Mol later became a supporter of Christijan Albers after Jos Verstappen left Formula One and led a group of investors that put together an F1 deal to buy into Spyker Cars and take over the Midland F1 team. Mol is now a major shareholder in Spyker and in September 2006 was appointed as F1 director of Spyker for a period of four years.