Ann Winblad is an American technology coach and venture capitalist, best known for her role as co-founder of Hummer Winblad Venture Partners.
Wiki/Biography
Ann L Winblad was born on Wednesday, November 1, 1950 (Age 70; as of 2020), was born in Red Wing, Minnesota, United States. Her star sign is Scorpio. She grew up in the cities of Rushford and Farmington, Minnesota. In high school, she was a cheerleader and valedictorian. In 1973, she received a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and business administration from St. Catherine’s University in St. Paul, Minnesota. During her sophomore year in college, she learned the Fortran programming language. From 1973 to 1975, she studied for a master’s degree in economics at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota. She also received an honorary doctor of laws degree from the University of St. Thomas.
appearance
Height: 5′ 2.75″
Eye Color: Blue
Hair color: Blonde
Family and Race
She belongs to Swedish immigrants.
Parents and siblings
She was the daughter of Wilbur Winblad (a high school basketball, baseball and football coach at Rushford High School who later became a history teacher, counselor, basketball coach and athletic director at Farmington High School) and Elizabeth Stark (a nurse).
Ann Winblad and her parents
She has five younger siblings, Mary Regenscheid, Susan Shields, Dave Winblad, Patty Jorgenson and Kathy Winblad-Polk.
Ann Winblad’s sister Susan
Relationship with husband
She had a boyfriend in high school. In 1984, she met Bill Gates at the Ben Rosen-Esther Dyson Computer Conference. Soon after, the two began dating. In 1987, they broke up because she wanted to get married and Bill didn’t. But they remained friends.
Bill Gates
On December 16, 2015, she married Alex Kline, a San Francisco private investor and the brother of actor Kevin Kline. Alex Kline has two children from his previous marriage.
Profession
She began her career as a systems analyst at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis in 1973. After two years at the bank, she left and founded her own accounting software company in 1976 with three other bank employees. The company was called Open Systems, Inc. In 1984, it was sold to Dallas-based UCCEL Corp for $15 million. After the sale, Winblad became a technical consultant to IBM and Microsoft; she also invested in Microsoft. She subsequently served as a director of several software companies, including:
- Central Point Software (1990-93)
- Oracle Hyperion (1991-96)
- Net perception (1996-2001)
- Xo Group (then The Knot) 1999-2005
- Starry sky analysis (2007-2013)
- Karmasphere (2010-14)
- Voltage Security Inc. (2002-15)
- OptiMine Software, Inc. (2014-Present)
She has also served as a director of other companies, such as
- Marketwired (200-2006) – Public relations and communications
- Silicon Valley Forum (1998-2004), concurrently serving as Chairman of the non-profit organization
- Ace Metrix (2008-20) – Advertising analytics
In 1984, she moved to California. In 1987, she met former NBA player John Hummer.
Soon, the two decided to start a joint venture and raised funds within two years. After obtaining investments from IBM and Sao Paulo Corporation, she co-founded the San Francisco-based venture capital firm Hammer Winblad Ventures (HWVP) with John Hammer in September 1989. In the early days of the company, the company helped to create at least 16 startups.
Hummer Winblad Venture Partners logo
In January 2000, she became a trustee of the University of St. Thomas, where she once studied. Since 2014, she has also served as a trustee of the Richard Schulz Family Foundation.
Awards and Achievements
- 2017 4th Global Women in STEM Conference (WiSTEM) Outstanding Women Honoree
- 2013 Innovation Catalyst Award
- Inducted into the Fortune Small Business Hall of Fame in 2000
- Ranked #64 on the Upside Elite 100 list in 1999
- Ranked 24th among Fortune’s 50 Most Powerful Women in American Business in 1998
- Ranked 22nd in Time Magazine’s Top 50 Internet Talents in 1998
Favorite Things
- TV series: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997)
- Movie: Rock and Roll (1984)
characteristic
- A house in Florence, Italy.
- A beach house in the Outer Banks of North Carolina.
Facts/Trivia
- At the age of seven, she found her first job, picking strawberries. She earned ten cents a berry, and because she was so young, her employer only allowed her to work a few hours.
- When her boyfriend taught her to long jump in high school, she competed in regional track meets.
- While in college, she worked three jobs: as a cocktail waitress at a bar (the bartenders called her “Sunshine”), as a bookkeeper at a hardware store, and as a customer service representative for Northwestern Bell until she graduated in 1973.
- While Ann and Bill Gates were dating and before they got married, they traveled to Brazil together to study bioengineering. On another vacation to Rancho Santa Barbara, California, Ann and Bill recorded Richard Feynman’s lectures and learned physics. During a vacation in Zanzibar, they learned about human evolution and had help from anthropologist Donald Johnson. On each trip, the two reportedly went to the beach with other couples to play games around a bonfire; they followed a tradition called “sing-a-longs,” where each team was given a word and had to come up with a song based on that word.
Old photo of Ann Winblad and Bill Gates
- After Bill Gates and Melinda Gates got married, Bill and Melinda reportedly agreed to continue the tradition of vacationing with Anne when they were dating. Every spring, Anne and Bill would spend a long weekend at her beachfront cottage in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. During the vacation, they would ride ATVs, hang-gliding, walk on the beach, and share their views on the world and themselves. It is unclear whether they still follow this tradition.
- In an interview, Ann described the impression Bill made on her as a businessman, saying:
Bill and I were walking on the beach one time, and Bill told me, “If I really think about it, I can figure out how to get to $500 million in revenue.” In 1984, no software company had ever done $100 million in revenue. Bill was a big influence on me, and I was thinking, wow, can you really build a company that big in the software industry? Are you kidding me? I remember asking him to take a stick or a stone and draw a number for me in the sand. How was he going to do it? And he said, “What bothers me is that I can’t see how you can get past $500 million.” I thought, “Does that bother you?” I was glad that someone could figure out how to get to $500 million. There was a lot of inspiration going on because there was so little collective intelligence.”
- Her hobbies include cycling, traveling, and fly fishing.
- She loved dogs very much and once had a dog, but it is now dead.
Ann Winblad’s Dog
- In addition to English, she is fluent in Spanish and Italian.
- In 1990, she co-authored the book Object-Oriented Software with Samuel D. Edwards and David R. King.
- She is also a public speaker and has spoken to entrepreneurs at various conferences and conventions. She has also spoken to the public at TED conferences.
Ann Winblad at TED
Categories: Biography
Source: HIS Education