Nathan Myhrvold

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Nathan Myhrvold, formerly Chief Technology Officer at Microsoft, is co-founder of Intellectual Ventures, which is seeking to build a large invention portfolio. He personally holds more than 18 U.S. patents and has applied for more than 100.

Myhrvold attended Mirman School ^[1]. He began college at age 14.^[2] He studied mathematics, geophysics, and space physics at UCLA (BSc, Masters). At Princeton he earned a master's degree in mathematical economics and completed a PhD in theoretical and mathematical physics by age 23. He also attended Santa Monica College. For one year, he held a postdoctoral fellowship at Cambridge working under Stephen Hawking, studying cosmology, quantum field theory in curved space time and quantum theories of gravitation, but left to join a computer startup in Oakland, California. The company, Dynamical Systems Inc., sought to produce a clone of IBM's TopView graphical user interface. Microsoft purchased Dynamical Systems in 1986 and Myhrvold worked there for 13 years.^[3]

Myhrvold is a prize-winning nature and wildlife photographer. He is also involved with paleontological research on expeditions with the Museum of the Rockies. His work has appeared in scientific journals including Science, Nature, Paleobiology and the Physical Review, as well as Fortune, Time, National Geographic Traveler and Slate. He has contributed $1 million to the SETI Foundation for the development of the Allen Telescope Array, planned to be the world's most powerful telescope.

In addition to his business and scientific interests, he is a master French chef who has finished first and second in the world championship of barbecue in Memphis, Tennessee. He also works as an assistant chef at one of Seattle's leading French restaurants.

[edit] References

^ "Where Bright Minds Can Shine" by Elaine Woo, Los Angeles Times - 22 November 2000
^ [http://judiciary.house.gov/OversightTestimony.aspx?ID=357 Oversight Testimony “Patent Quality and Improvement” before the Subcommittee on the Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Property, Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, Congress of the United States 28 April 2005
^ Microsoft (1999-06-01). Microsoft Chief Technology Officer Nathan Myhrvold Takes Leave of Absence. Press release. Retrieved on 2006-10-14.

[edit] Further reading

Auletta, Ken, "The Highwaymen", Harvest Books, 1998. ISBN 0156005735 Cf. Chapter 17: The Microsoft Provocateur: Nathan Myhrvold, Bill Gates Corporate Gadfly.