Got this response to my inquiry from "shl3" on the Yahoo board:
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You have a few points wrong on 3Dfx history. Gordon Campbell was not from SGI, he is part of Techfarm, the company that provided intial funding for 3Dfx. He was not one of the original founders, but he was Chairman and CEO from very early on. The 3 founders are Scott Sellers, Gary Tarolli and Ross Smith. All related to SGI in one way or another. Scott was the boy genius of the group. I think he was only 24 when they developed the intial Voodoo technology. Ross has since left to form Quantum3D, a high-end 3Dfx board manufacturer- primarily for vis-sim.
Scott and Gary are still there. Scott is Executive VP Engineering, Gary is Chief Scientist (their titles may have changed since I was there).
As for Greg Ballard, he has been there about a year and 1/2. He is the first president and replaced Campbell as the CEO. He was previously from Capcom and before that Time-Warner. He has an extensive background in the entertainment industry (as opposed to chips) and that is why he was brought in. To lead the company in its new direction.
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She later added a correction:
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Sorry, Gordie actually was one of the original founders. While Gary, Scott and Ross had already been doing business together, the company wasn't officially founded until after after all 4 hooked up.
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Thank you _very_ much "shl3"!!!
This deepens my concern that the current management team (led by Ballard, a relative outsider) is _not_ responsible for TDFX's prior success - the development team is. Unfortunately TDFX is now at a cross-roads. The OEM-oriented nature of Banshee and the increasing competition and associated pricing pressures mean that "great engineering" is no longer a sufficient condition for success. The Management and Marketing teams are only now facing their first _real_ challenge IMHO. I'll continue to watch closely and be skeptical until I see concrete evidence that those teams are performing as well as TDFX's engineering teams are.
Chip |
