Netscape

He's got a record and a fame that most envy and few can match. He's the man with Midas touch, so to speak, for whichever company he starts, has a market capitalization of $1 billion within its first year operation. Meet Jim Clark, the prolific founder of companies, but better known as co-founder of Netscape. His is the typical rags and riches story - in his childhood, his mother supported him and two his siblings on a paltry $300 a month. By the mid 20's, he had a PhD in computer science from university of Utah. He went as an Asst. professor Stanford University from 1974-78. There was no turning back after that.

Silicon Graphics was launched in 1981. His vision was to bring the world of 3D to desktop computing, and he focused on convergence technology. He was not quite savvy to the way of financial world yet, as he realized later, when SGI came up with its initial public Offering (IPO). Since, venture capital funding backed this company, he hardly had much stake in the company, and so didn't gain much out of the IPO.

Then came Netscape, and with co-founder Marc Andreesen, Clark became a household name. He revolutionized the Net with a browser that gave the much needed value addition to the net. Enhanced browser capabilities, plugins, integrated communications suite became part and parcel of the browser concept. And in 1995, when Netscape came up with one of the most successful IPOs in 1995, Clark earned the most out of the resulting market capitalization. He was at the forefront of Netscape's strategy war with Microsoft over Internet Explorer. When AOL acquired Netscape, Clark's net worth increased to $2 billion from his 13 million shares of AOL. Add another $ 500 million form Healtheon, an Internet services company founded by him in 1996 to Network to Health care system, and there is no doubting that has grown to be one of the pioneering businessman.