Robert J. Davis | |
|---|---|
 Bob Davis in 2014 | |
| Born | 1956 (age 67–68) |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | Northeastern University, B.S. Business Administration 1979 Babson College, MBA, 1985 |
| Occupation(s) | General Partner, Highland Capital Partners |
Robert J. ("Bob") Davis (born 1956) is a managing partner of Highland Capital Partners. He is the former chief executive officer of Lycos, which he led since its inception and through its acquisition by Terra at the peak of the dot-com bubble.
Davis was born in Dorchester, Massachusetts in 1956. At the age of 10, Davis sold newspapers at a street corner and sold from mail order catalogs as a teenager. [1]
In 1979, he received a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration from Northeastern University, graduating with highest honors. In 1985, he received an MBA from Babson College. [2] In 1999, he received an Honorary Doctorate of Commercial Sciences from Bentley College. [3] He also received an Honorary Doctorate from Northeastern University in 2000. [4]
From January 1982 to January 1993, Davis worked for Wang Laboratories, a computer manufacturer, as Director of United States Commercial Sales and Marketing and Director of Worldwide Marketing. From January 1993 to June 1995, Davis served as Vice President of Sales at Cambex Corporation, a manufacturer of computer-related products. [2] [1]
Since its inception in June 1995, Davis served as the President and CEO of Lycos. [5] In 1996, 9 months after Lycos was founded, he led the company to the fastest initial public offering in history. [6] Lycos was one of the first profitable internet businesses. [7] As CEO of Lycos, he led the company to acquire more than a dozen websites [8] including Wired.com, HotBot, Tripod.com, WhoWhere, Quote.com, and Matchmaker.com. [9] Davis led the company through its acquisition by Terra for $12.5 billion in stock in 2000. [10] After the Terra acquisition, he served as the CEO of Terra Lycos, the combined company. [11] [12]
In 2001, Davis left Terra Lycos to join Highland Capital Partners, a venture capital firm. He has served on the boards of John Hancock Financial, Ticketmaster, Lycos, Lycos Europe, Fastclick, Children's Hospital Boston, and the Rivers School. [4]
In 2001, Davis wrote a book called Speed is Life: Street Smart Lessons from the Front Lines of Business, which was published by Currency, an imprint of Crown Publishing Group. The memoir focused on practical advice for operating a company. [13] Davis donated his proceeds from the book to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. [14]
Lycos, Inc., is a web search engine and web portal established in 1994, spun out of Carnegie Mellon University. Lycos also encompasses a network of email, web hosting, social networking, and entertainment websites. The company is based in Waltham, Massachusetts, and is a subsidiary of Ybrant Digital.
Inktomi Corporation was a company that provided software for Internet service providers (ISPs). It was incorporated in Delaware and headquartered in Foster City, California, United States. Customers included Microsoft, HotBot, Amazon.com, eBay, and Walmart.
HotBot is a Canadian web search engine owned by HotBot Limited, whose key principal is Kristen Richardson. According to the website itself, the current domain has been relaunched in 2022 under new ownership and with a different technology.
Juniper Networks, Inc. is an American multinational corporation headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. The company develops and markets networking products, including routers, switches, network management software, network security products, and software-defined networking technology.
Terra was a Spanish Internet multinational company owned by Telefónica. It was headquartered in Spain and had offices in Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, the United States and Peru. Part of the Telefónica Group, Terra operated as a web portal or Internet access provider in the United States, Spain and 16 Latin American countries. It was founded in 1999 as Terra Networks, S.A., a publicly traded company with Telefónica as its main shareholder, all outstanding shares were purchased by Telefónica in 2017, making Terra a wholly owned subsidiary.
Tripod.com is a web hosting service owned by Lycos. Originally aiming its services to college students and young adults, it was one of several sites trying to build online communities during the 1990s. As such, Tripod formed part of the first wave of user-generated content. Free webpages are no longer available and have been replaced by paid services.
TheStreet is a financial news and financial literacy website. It is a subsidiary of The Arena Group. The company provides both free content and subscription services such as Action Alerts Plus, a stock recommendation portfolio co-managed by Bob Lang and Chris Versace. TheStreet was founded by Marty Peretz and Jim Cramer, and the site boasts numerous notable former contributors, including Aaron Task, Herb Greenberg, and Brett Arends.
net2phone is a Cloud Communications provider offering cloud based telephony services to businesses worldwide. The company is a subsidiary of IDT Corporation.
Bo Peabody is an entrepreneur, venture capitalist and Internet executive who co-founded Tripod.com, one of the earliest dot-coms, in 1992. He is currently the co-founder and Executive Chairman of Seated, a dynamic pricing platform for restaurants. He is also a venture partner and entrepreneur in residence at Greycroft Partners.
Steel Connect, Inc. is an American company that provides supply chain management services to software companies.
Vignette Corporation was a company that offered a suite of content management, web portal, collaboration, document management, and records management software. Targeted at the enterprise market, Vignette offered products under the name StoryServer that allowed non-technical users to create, edit and track content through workflows and publish it on the web. It provided integration for enterprise resource planning, customer relationship management and legacy systems, supporting Java EE and Microsoft.NET. Vignette's integrated development environment and application programming interface offered an alternative to conventional Common Gateway Interface/vi/Perl web development. StoryServer was used on many large websites including those of CNET, UnitedHealth Group, The Walt Disney Company, Wachovia, Martha Stewart, Fox News, National Geographic Channel, Pharmacia & Upjohn, MetLife, BSkyB, the 2004 Summer Olympics, and NASA.
Bill Townsend is an entrepreneur who helped launch several leading Internet companies including search engine Lycos, social networking site SixDegrees, now LinkedIn, GeoCities and Deja.com. He is President & CEO of TRICCAR, Inc., a publicly-held bioceutical research and development company focused on pharmaceutical and bioceutical solutions to common diseases. He is also President & CEO of Ontheline Corporation, a next generation communications and digital lifestyle platform
TIBCO Software Inc. is a business unit of Cloud Software Group that provides enterprise software. It has headquarters in Palo Alto and offices in North America, Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Africa and South America.
Juan Villalonga Navarro is a Spanish businessman. He was a partner at McKinsey & Company in the 1980s, CEO for Credit Suisse First Boston and Bankers Trust in Spain in the early 1990s, and CEO of Telefónica from 1996 to 2000.
Highland Capital Partners is a global venture capital firm with offices in Boston, Silicon Valley, and San Francisco. Highland has raised over $4 billion in committed capital and invested in more than 280 companies, with 47 IPOs and 134 acquisitions.
Digital Insight was a provider of online banking software to banks and credit unions. It also designed FinanceWorks, a product that allowed customers to manage their finances. In 2014, the company was acquired by and folded into NCR Corporation.
Perficient, Inc. is a global digital consultancy. The company's efforts include enterprise mobile applications, creative services, marketing, digital strategy Internet of Things, information technology, management consulting, custom development, and platform implementations.
RagingBull.com is a website focused on financial literacy and day trading.
The Brightcom Group is a digital marketing company founded in 2000 and headquartered in Hyderabad, India with offices in US, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Mexico, UK, France, Germany, Sweden, Ukraine, Serbia, Israel, China, India, and Australia, and with representatives or partners in Poland, and Italy. It ranked 400th in the Fortune India 500 list in 2020.
Buck Buckley is the Co-Founder and CIO of SEMCAP and former CEO of Actua Corporation, formerly ICG Corporation, a company that he co-founded along with Ken Fox. In 2017, Actua Corporation announced the sale of its majority-owned assets and that it would return 3x capital to shareholders.
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