Larry Brilliant(I)

Has been a physician, an activist, a religious seeker in India, a leader of the drive to eradicate smallpox, a computer networking pioneer, and an Internet entrepreneur. He launched his Network Technologies International (NETI) company in 1984 and was a founder of The WELL, the early on-line discussion network.

I've worked with Black Panthers and Chicanos, with American Indians and East Indians. I'm used to dealing with all kinds of people. Everyone else at Network Technologies knows more about computers and business than I do, but I'm the catalyst that makes things work. Dealing with people and getting things done are carryovers from my past. They are generic skills that transfer as easily to stamping out smallpox as to starting a company. [San Francisco Chronicle, 24 August 1986]