Thompson gives credit to his Florida roots
It made the technology magnate reflect on his early days. "August Busch and I raised $2 million to endow a chair for Sybil Mobley (former dean of business at FAMU). When we had the ceremony, I almost cried because of what she meant to me."
Thompson rose to the top levels of IBM during 28 years before leading the resurgence of Symantec Corp. as chairman and CEO, the most visible African-American in Silicon Valley.
He transformed Symantec into a leader in security, storage and systems management solutions. During his 10-year tenure as CEO from 1999 to 2009, Symantec’s revenues grew from $632 million to $6.2 billion, and its worldwide workforce grew to more than 17,500 employees. Thompson stepped down as CEO of Symantec in 2009, and stepped down from Symantec’s board of directors in 2011
However, it might not have happened for the Riviera Beach high school graduate. "I always wanted to go into business, because there were only a few black models of success when I was growing up in West Palm Beach and I didn't want to be a lawyer or a doctor," Thompson said during the panel organized by Ken Coleman and Ben Horowitz at Andreessen Horowitz.
Afterward, he shared that he had originally gone to Lincoln University in Pennsylvania on a music scholarship, which was withdrawn when he only registered for business courses. So he transferred back to Florida A&M to pursue his goals.
The ability to look ahead continues to drive Thompson today as chairman of Virtual Instruments Inc., which just completed a $27 million venture funding round. Its products are designed to ensure the performance and availability of applications deployed in virtualized and private cloud computing environments. After retiring from Symantec, he invested in the firm because he anticipated a migration from hardware to cloud computing. Soon he found himself back in the saddle as the company needed more capital. "It's the first time in my 38-year career I had to actually raise money."
He was also elected to the board of Microsoft in February. “John has extraordinary technology and business expertise, and we are delighted that he is joining Microsoft’s board of directors,” said Bill Gates, Microsoft chairman.
