| Samir Arora | |
|---|---|
Samir Arora in 2007 |
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| Born | November 5, 1965 |
| Residence | Woodside, California and SoHo, New York |
| Occupation | Internet Entrepreneur |
| Title | Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Glam Media, Inc. Chairman of Information Capital LLC |
| Awards |
IIA Entrepreneur of the Year (1997)[1][2][3] |
| Website | |
| Samir Arora | |
Samir Arora (born November 5, 1965) is best known as the founder, CEO and Chairman of the web design pioneering company NetObjects, Inc. from 1995 to 2001, and also as the co-founder, CEO and Chairman of Glam Media since 2003. Samir Arora holds 13 US software patents as co-inventor.[8]
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Samir Arora grew up in New Delhi, India, as the eldest son of a wealthy Indian family. His father ran a hotel-related business. Samir Arora attended a Jesuit high school at St. Xavier's, the executive management program at INSEAD Business School in France, and the executive education program at Harvard Business School. He holds a diploma in sales and marketing from the London Business School and studied electrical and electronic engineering at Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS).[9][10]
Samir Arora worked at Apple Computer[10][11] in Software and New Media from 1983 to 1992, and moved to Cupertino, California, in 1986.
Arora wrote a white paper called "Information Navigation: The Future of Computing" in late 1986,[10] and worked on early Desktop Publishing, HyperCard and 4th Dimension systems.[4] He is known for creating the first "External Objects" specification, coined the terms "MacNavigator" and "MacBrowser" and worked on the early prototypes that lead to the making of the "Knowledge Navigator" video in 1987. Arora worked for the Chairman and CEO of Apple Computer, John Sculley, from 1987 to 1991.[9]
In 1991 Samir Arora worked on the first tablet Apple called Pen Mac. The project later was cancelled by John Sculley in favor of the Newton PDA. The operating system of the Pen Mac had been created by Paul Mercer, who helped create the operating system, that was used by Apple to launch iPod.[12]
From 1992 to 1995, Arora was Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Rae Technology (a spin-off from Apple Computer),[4] which developed "information navigation applications" that can be seen as predecessors of Web sites.[9] Rae Technology created Rae Assist, one of the first Personal Information Managers (PIM).[13]
In 1995 Samir Arora co-founded NetObjects, Inc. and together with a design and development team including David Kleinberg, Clement Mok and Sal Arora, created NetObjects Fusion, one of the first Web design tools. This Web design software was innovative at the time of its introduction in 1996 because of the way Web sites were designed and structured.[14]
In 1998 Samir Arora was named as one of the "Web Innovators of the Year" by CNET,[4][5][6] and, together with Pointcast, was named Entrepreneur of the Year 1997 by the Emerging Business Council of the Information Industry Association (now Software and Information Industry Association).[1][2][3]
After the launch of NetObjects Fusion, IBM invested approximately $100 million in a share exchange to buy 80% of NetObjects, corresponding to a valuation of around $150 million.[15][16] NetObjects, Inc. went public on NASDAQ in 1999 with IBM staying the majority shareholder. Dependencies on IBM were high as the registration statement pointed out.[17]
Not yet having turned a profit as a start-up company,[17] tough competition and fast changing markets made NetObjects, Inc. introduce a shift in its business model from packaged software to a subscription model. Decreasing revenues and the decline in public markets heavily affected share prices, and following a de-listing notice from the NASDAQ, its majority shareholder IBM made the decision to sell the company in 2001. Its assets including NetObjects Fusion were sold to Website Pros (now named Web.com), a web services company, based in Jacksonville, Florida, USA. A portfolio of seven patents was acquired by Macromedia (now Adobe Systems), the distributor of Dreamweaver.
Since 1997, Samir Arora has been the Chairman of Information Capital LLC, a venture capital fund based in Woodside, California, USA, which invests in consumer publishing, media & technology companies.
From June 2003 to February 2004, Arora served as Chairman of the Board of Emode: Tickle, Inc.[18] Tickle, one of the first social networking sites, was founded in 1999 in Boston as Emode.com, and moved to San Francisco in 2000.[19] Tickle was acquired by Monster.com in May 2004 and shut down in June 2008.[20]
In 2003 Arora helped found and invested in Glam Media - a privately held company that publishes Glam.com, one of the fastest growing Web properties in 2007[21] and 2008.[22]
In an effort to diversify its fashion and life-style oriented business, Glam launched Tinker, a service based on Twitter. Tinker "allows users to quickly browse through different real-time Twitter and Facebook searches relevant to various current events, trends and breaking news".[23]
Samir Arora serves as Chairman and CEO of Glam Media. For his work at Glam, he was included by min Magazine in the The Digital Hot List 2008[24] in November 2008, and received the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year award for Northern California in the category "Media, entertainment and communications" in 2009.[7]
Samir Arora received the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year© Award in 2009. The Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year© award is the world’s most prestigious business award for entrepreneurs, spanning more than 140 cities and 50 countries worldwide.
Besides his media and software activities, Samir Arora has had numerous activities in the entertainment industry. In Delhi from 1975 to 1983, he was trained by Barry John, the leader of the Theatre Action Group (TAG), and took part in over 30 theatre and TV productions, including Jesus Christ Superstar (1975–76), Tommy (1978), Kidstuff (1979), Death of an Anarchist (1980), and The Day of Atonement (1981). Samir Arora studied theatre and music composition and wrote as well as produced several plays and musicals during this time, amongst them the plays: The Pinnacle (1982) and The Vulture Stooped Low (1984), and two musicals: The Wall (1981) and Stronger than Superman (1984).[10] Arora was one of the few members of the TAG team to leave theatre, TV and movies, and went on to join Apple Computer.
Arora serves on the board of trustees of TheatreWorks of San Francisco Bay Area and is an associate producer of that institution[25][26]
Samir Arora studied several forms of alternative health therapies. He is a certified body therapist (AISI) and has studied Bodywork, Ida Rolf's Structural Integration, Moshé Feldenkrais' Functional Integration, Zen Trigger Point, Berry Method, Trager Work, and Dub Leigh's Zentherapy. Samir Arora practices Zazen, and said in a Times-Interview from 2008: "The last time I had any traditional medicine was 18 years ago."[10]
Samir Arora divides his time between his home in Woodside, California and SoHo, New York.[10] He is married to Rebecca Arora, née Bogle, who is one of the eight members of the founding team of Glam. They met in 2002 at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California.