Bricklin on Technology

About the Author

Daniel Bricklin, a software developer and entrepreneur, is best known as the cocreator of VisiCalc, the first electronic spreadsheet.

Dan was born in 1951 and started programming while still in high school in the mid-1960s. He attended college at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and received a B.S. in Electrical Engineering/Computer Science in 1973. While attending school, he also worked at MIT's Laboratory for Computer Science, programming various interactive systems. It was there that he met Bob Frankston.

After MIT, Dan worked at Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), where he was involved in computerized typesetting and some editing hardware. He was project leader of the initial WPS-8 word processing software (later sold as part of the DECmate system), helping to specify and develop one of the first stand-alone screen-based word processing systems. In 1976, he left DEC and worked at FasFax Corporation, a small maker of microprocessor-based electronic cash registers. He returned to school in 1977, this time receiving an M.B.A. from Harvard in 1979.

It was during his tenure as a graduate student that he conceived of the idea and design for the electronic spreadsheet, teaming up with his friend Bob Frankston to do the programming. Together, they founded Software Arts, Inc., in 1979, where Dan served as chairman from 1979 to 1985.

His next venture was as president of Software Garden, Inc., a small company with headquarters in his home. There Dan developed ...