Nick DeWolf

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Nick DeWolf was born in Philadelphia on July 12, 1928 and died in Aspen, Colorado, on April 16, 2006.[1]

DeWolf was one of the founders of Teradyne, a Boston, Massachusetts-based manufacturer of automatic test equipment. He founded the company in 1960 with Alex d’Arbeloff, a classmate at MIT.[2]

After leaving Teradyne in 1971, DeWolf moved to Aspen, Colorado. In 2001, DeWolf was awarded the Telluride Tech Festival Award of Technology.[3] In 2005, Nick and his wife, Maggie DeWolf, were inducted into the Aspen Hall of Fame.[4]

DeWolf designed a computer system without hard disks or fans; this system (the ON! computer) booted up in seconds, a much faster time than even the computers of today.

DeWolf graduated with an S.B. in EECS from MIT in 1948.[5]

[edit] Quotes

"What the customer demands is last year's model, cheaper. To find out what the customer needs you have to understand what the customer is doing as well as he understands it. Then you build what he needs and you educate him to the fact that he needs it."[6]

"To select a component, size a product, architect a system or plan a new company, first test the extremes and then have the courage to resist what is popular and the wisdom to choose what is best".[7]