Thomas Stemberg

Harvard alumni Thomas Stemberg started out in the Grocery business in the 1970s. Through Star Market he developed and introduced  generic brand foods. This idea was a first dismissed as out there, but has since proved to be an industry standard. After his success there he joined First National Supermarkets and brought the business back on it feet but was let go when the company sold off his division.

In in the 1980s he and former rival Leo Kahn teamed up to form Staples. The company is now based out of Framingham, Massachusetts and revolutionized the way office supplies are purchased. He envisioned it as a Toys R Us for office supplies.

Stemberg currently is a managing partner at Highland Capital Ventures’ Consumer Fund.  “ Venture Capital is a perfect third act for a guy like me” was what he said in a January 2007 Inc interview.

Ken Olsen

Bridgeport, Connecticut  native Ken Olsen was on an Admiral’s Staff  during World War II in the Navy. After a brief stint at General Electric after the war, he attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge.

There he was involved in MIT’s Whirlwind Computer under Jay Forrester to improve real time information for the United States Military after the Russians set of their first nuclear bomb. He then went on to work with one of the first computers to use transistors.

In 1957 Olsen and Harlan Anderson started Digital Equipment Corporation with money supplied by Georges Doriot’s venture capital. They started out making computers for engineers and scientists and eventually moved into producing computers that would be used by  private industry. He is credited with creating the mini computer and advancing computer networking.