{"id":5366,"date":"2024-03-06T20:03:16","date_gmt":"2024-03-07T04:03:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sergneri.net\/wordpress\/?p=5366"},"modified":"2024-03-06T20:03:16","modified_gmt":"2024-03-07T04:03:16","slug":"john-walker-dies-at-74","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sergneri.net\/wordpress\/index.php\/2024\/03\/06\/john-walker-dies-at-74\/","title":{"rendered":"John Walker Dies at 74"},"content":{"rendered":"

John Walker, Tech Executive Who Popularized AutoCAD, Dies at 74<\/a><\/p>\n

He avoided the spotlight, but he helped bring to market an explosively popular computer program that revolutionized the architecture and design industries.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Rest In Peace, man. <\/p>\n

He was irascible, never got along with his electric shaver, wore a short sleeved shirt, no matter the weather in Sausalito, and slacks with an old belt even after he became very wealthy. He was like a Higgs Boson when he’d show up at a beer bust everyone would gravitate to him for some interesting conversations. <\/p>\n

Many of us did well or became wealthy and owe that to John and the other Founders, Mauri Laitenen, Greg Lutz, Hal Royalty, Kern Sibbald, Duff Kurland, Dan Drake, Keith Marcelius, Mike Ford, David Kalish, et al. <\/p>\n

All that is very old news today. It is a rare thing to participate in a startup that takes off, and it was quite a ride.<\/p>\n

Autodesk Resignation<\/a> from 1994
\nJohn Walker, the reclusive founder of Sausalito based Autodesk,
\nquietly resigned last week, saying that his interests were diverging
\nfrom the company that was once described as a “theocracy of hackers.”
\nAutodesk, the nation’s largest maker of design software for personal
\ncomputers, had chosen not to announce his departure because Walker
\nwas no longer an executive and working only as a programmer.
\nNew York Times<\/p>\n

That was 10 years after I joined the company in 1984. <\/p>\n

I believe the story goes that after the IPO, he and Roxie bought a nice house on the hill road going to Stinson Beach and matching Honda Civics without radios. <\/p>\n

Another story is the little dog who belonged to our A\/P accountant, pissed on the door to Walker’s office and was not exiled.<\/p>\n

I do recall that he was a night owl and would arrive at the office sometime after 2 p.m. most days and would work until late. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John Walker, Tech Executive Who Popularized AutoCAD, Dies at 74 He avoided the spotlight, but he helped bring to market an explosively popular computer program that revolutionized the architecture and design industries. Rest In Peace, man. He was irascible, never got along with his electric shaver, wore a short sleeved shirt, no matter the weather … [Read more…]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,7,2308,11,2148,16,17],"tags":[4834,220,4843,4846,4842,4836,4839,4837,4840,4835,4844,4841,4838,4845,1515,4847],"class_list":{"0":"entry","1":"post","2":"publish","3":"author-sergneri","4":"post-5366","6":"format-standard","7":"category-california-history","8":"category-faits-divers","9":"category-future-of-work","10":"category-it-failures","11":"category-obituaries","12":"category-sea-stories","13":"category-thinking-about","14":"post_tag-autocad","15":"post_tag-autodesk","16":"post_tag-dan-drake","17":"post_tag-david-kalish","18":"post_tag-duff-kurland","19":"post_tag-founders","20":"post_tag-greg-lutz","21":"post_tag-hacker","22":"post_tag-hal-royalty","23":"post_tag-john-walker","24":"post_tag-keith-marcelius","25":"post_tag-kern-sibbald","26":"post_tag-mauri-laitenen","27":"post_tag-mike-ford","28":"post_tag-sausalito","29":"post_tag-startup"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sergneri.net\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sergneri.net\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sergneri.net\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sergneri.net\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sergneri.net\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5366"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.sergneri.net\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5366\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5370,"href":"https:\/\/www.sergneri.net\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5366\/revisions\/5370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sergneri.net\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sergneri.net\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sergneri.net\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}