Peter Currie
Encyclopedia
Peter L. S. Currie is a business
executive notable for being the chief financial officer
for Netscape
during the 1990s. Currie was described by Wall Street Journal reporter Jessica Vascellaro as one of the "Silicon Valley wise men". He advised Facebook
CEO Mark Zuckerberg
about business matters in 2009. He is an investor in Internet start-ups and serves on the boards of numerous firms. He is president of Currie Capital and is a charter trustee of Phillips Academy. In February 2011, he was elected to be the president of the school's board of trustees, and he will replace outgoing president Oscar Tang
in July of 2012.
in Andover
in 1974 in the school's first co–educational class. His fellow classmates included jazz Grammy–winner Bill Cunliffe
, actor Dana Delany
, painter Julian Hatton
, poet Karl Kirchwey
, writer Nate Lee
, political commentator Heather Mac Donald
, restauranteur Priscilla Martel
, children's TV producer Jonathan Meath
, editor Sara Nelson
, and sculptor Gar Waterman
. Currie earned a B.A.
degree from Williams College
in 1978 and an M.B.A. degree from Stanford University
. He worked in various capacities at Morgan Stanley
including holding the title of Principal from 1982 to 1989. He held various management positions at McCaw Cellular from 1989 to 1995 before joining Netscape.
, and Currie was a key executive who worked with Netscape CEO James Barksdale
and founder Marc Andreessen
. Netscape developed the Secure Sockets Layer Protocol
or SSL for securing online communication which is still widely used as well as JavaScript
. Currie was Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer at Netscape since April 1995. Currie was CFO when Netscape went public in 1995. He was Chief Administrative Officer at Netscape from July 1997 until March 1999. In addition to financial management, Currie was responsible for human resources
, information technology
, facilities, and operations departments.
Currie owned at least 37,500 shares of stock in Netscape which he sold in 1996, according to one report. Netscape was valued at $5 billion in November 1995. In 1999, Netscape was bought by America Online
and became a holding company.
Netscape was seen as the first Internet superstar which had a meteoric rise but the firm was undone by numerous forces including well-established software firms such as Microsoft
. In a conference in 2005, Currie described how "hectic and crazy things were" during the tumultous years in the mid 1990s. Currie looked back to the tumultous Netscape days and commented:
firm called Barksdale Group to invest in business start-ups, and raised at least $180 million according to one report. As an investor and consultant, he focused on the enterprise software
sector of the business. Currie invested in an Internet start-up called Flipboard
in 2010. Currie has affiliations with numerous companies including Corsair Communications, Critical Path, Inkling, Listen.com, Kodak Imaging Network, Kontiki, IPVALUE Management, Oracle America, Tellme Networks, Zantaz, InfoSpace.com, Clearwire, CNET, Safeco, and Palamon Capital Partners. He serves on the board of directors for many firms.
Currie's advice was sought by Facebook chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg
in 2010.
Business
A business is an organization engaged in the trade of goods, services, or both to consumers. Businesses are predominant in capitalist economies, where most of them are privately owned and administered to earn profit to increase the wealth of their owners. Businesses may also be not-for-profit...
executive notable for being the chief financial officer
Chief financial officer
The chief financial officer or Chief financial and operating officer is a corporate officer primarily responsible for managing the financial risks of the corporation. This officer is also responsible for financial planning and record-keeping, as well as financial reporting to higher management...
for Netscape
Netscape
Netscape Communications is a US computer services company, best known for Netscape Navigator, its web browser. When it was an independent company, its headquarters were in Mountain View, California...
during the 1990s. Currie was described by Wall Street Journal reporter Jessica Vascellaro as one of the "Silicon Valley wise men". He advised Facebook
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
CEO Mark Zuckerberg
Mark Zuckerberg
Mark Elliot Zuckerberg is an American computer programmer and Internet entrepreneur. He is best known for co-creating the social networking site Facebook, of which he is chief executive and president...
about business matters in 2009. He is an investor in Internet start-ups and serves on the boards of numerous firms. He is president of Currie Capital and is a charter trustee of Phillips Academy. In February 2011, he was elected to be the president of the school's board of trustees, and he will replace outgoing president Oscar Tang
Oscar Tang
Oscar L. Tang is a Chinese-born American financier who is notable as a philanthropist for education and art. He donated millions of dollars to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Skidmore College, and the Gordon Parks Foundation, In 2008, he gave $25 million to Phillips Academy in what was the school's...
in July of 2012.
Early years
Currie graduated from Phillips AcademyPhillips Academy
Phillips Academy is a selective, co-educational independent boarding high school for boarding and day students in grades 9–12, along with a post-graduate year...
in Andover
Andover, Massachusetts
Andover is a town in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. It was incorporated in 1646 and as of the 2010 census, the population was 33,201...
in 1974 in the school's first co–educational class. His fellow classmates included jazz Grammy–winner Bill Cunliffe
Bill Cunliffe
Bill Cunliffe is an American jazz pianist and composer based in Los Angeles He has been described by The New York Times as being in the "modern jazz mainstream" and as an "accomplished pianist and composer." Ernie Rideout of Keyboard Magazine described Cunliffe's playing as "inventive, melodic,...
, actor Dana Delany
Dana Delany
Dana Welles Delany is an American film, stage, and television actress, producer, host and health activist.After various roles in the early career, Delany garnered her first leading role in 1987 in the short-lived NBC sitcom Sweet Surrender and achieved wider fame in 1988–1991 as Colleen McMurphy...
, painter Julian Hatton
Julian Hatton
Julian Burroughs Hatton III is an American landscape abstract artist from New York City whose paintings have appeared in galleries in the United States and France. The New York Times described his painting style as "vibrant, playful, semi-abstract landscapes" while New York Sun art critic John...
, poet Karl Kirchwey
Karl Kirchwey
Karl Kirchwey is a prize–winning American poet who has lived in both Europe and the United States and whose work is strongly influenced by the Greek and Roman past. He often looks to the classical world for inspiration with themes which have included loss, loneliness, nostalgia and modern...
, writer Nate Lee
Nate Lee
Nate Lee is an American author and former senior editor at Chicago's Newcity weekly magazine who advocated passionately for live theater. At Newcity, Lee wrote features, a weekly column called Urbanitie, theatre and film reviews as well as stories on architecture and historic preservation, and at...
, political commentator Heather Mac Donald
Heather Mac Donald
Heather Lynn Mac Donald is an American political commentator and thinker notable for her advocacy of secular conservatism. She has advocated her positions on numerous subjects including crime prevention, immigration reform, academia, the art world, and politics. She is a prolific essayist...
, restauranteur Priscilla Martel
Priscilla Martel
Priscilla Martel is an award–winning American chef, food writer, and consultant notable for desserts, baking, pastries and fireplace-cooked meals. Her recipes appear in magazines such as Food & Wine. She is a contributing writer at Flavor and the Menu Magazine. She teaches and has written...
, children's TV producer Jonathan Meath
Jonathan Meath
Jonathan Meath is an award–winning American TV producer based in Boston who is notable for earning numerous Emmy nominations and the coveted George Foster Peabody Award in 1993. He is known for his commitment to children's educational television...
, editor Sara Nelson
Sara Nelson
Sara Nelson is an American publishing industry figure who is an editor and book reviewer and consultant and columnist and who is currently the book editor at Oprah's O Magazine. Nelson is notable for having been editor in chief at the book industry's chief trade publication Publishers Weekly from...
, and sculptor Gar Waterman
Gar Waterman
Gar Waterman is an award–winning sculptor based in New Haven in Connecticut who is notable for large public arts projects which beautify public places as well as creations which mimic sealife. He works in marble, stone, bronze, wood, and sometimes glass. Some of his sculptures resemble "giant...
. Currie earned a B.A.
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...
degree from Williams College
Williams College
Williams College is a private liberal arts college located in Williamstown, Massachusetts, United States. It was established in 1793 with funds from the estate of Ephraim Williams. Originally a men's college, Williams became co-educational in 1970. Fraternities were also phased out during this...
in 1978 and an M.B.A. degree from Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
. He worked in various capacities at Morgan Stanley
Morgan Stanley
Morgan Stanley is a global financial services firm headquartered in New York City serving a diversified group of corporations, governments, financial institutions, and individuals. Morgan Stanley also operates in 36 countries around the world, with over 600 offices and a workforce of over 60,000....
including holding the title of Principal from 1982 to 1989. He held various management positions at McCaw Cellular from 1989 to 1995 before joining Netscape.
Netscape rise and fall
Netscape was a key player that "fueled the Internet revolution", according to a report in The New York TimesThe New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, and Currie was a key executive who worked with Netscape CEO James Barksdale
Jim Barksdale
Jim Barksdale was the president and CEO of Netscape Communications Corporation from January 1995 until the company merged with AOL in March 1999.-Early life:...
and founder Marc Andreessen
Marc Andreessen
Marc Andreessen is an American entrepreneur, investor, software engineer, and multi-millionaire best known as co-author of Mosaic, the first widely-used web browser, and co-founder of Netscape Communications Corporation. He founded and later sold the software company Opsware to Hewlett-Packard...
. Netscape developed the Secure Sockets Layer Protocol
Transport Layer Security
Transport Layer Security and its predecessor, Secure Sockets Layer , are cryptographic protocols that provide communication security over the Internet...
or SSL for securing online communication which is still widely used as well as JavaScript
JavaScript
JavaScript is a prototype-based scripting language that is dynamic, weakly typed and has first-class functions. It is a multi-paradigm language, supporting object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles....
. Currie was Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer at Netscape since April 1995. Currie was CFO when Netscape went public in 1995. He was Chief Administrative Officer at Netscape from July 1997 until March 1999. In addition to financial management, Currie was responsible for human resources
Human resources
Human resources is a term used to describe the individuals who make up the workforce of an organization, although it is also applied in labor economics to, for example, business sectors or even whole nations...
, information technology
Information technology
Information technology is the acquisition, processing, storage and dissemination of vocal, pictorial, textual and numerical information by a microelectronics-based combination of computing and telecommunications...
, facilities, and operations departments.
Currie owned at least 37,500 shares of stock in Netscape which he sold in 1996, according to one report. Netscape was valued at $5 billion in November 1995. In 1999, Netscape was bought by America Online
AOL
AOL Inc. is an American global Internet services and media company. AOL is headquartered at 770 Broadway in New York. Founded in 1983 as Control Video Corporation, it has franchised its services to companies in several nations around the world or set up international versions of its services...
and became a holding company.
Netscape was seen as the first Internet superstar which had a meteoric rise but the firm was undone by numerous forces including well-established software firms such as Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
. In a conference in 2005, Currie described how "hectic and crazy things were" during the tumultous years in the mid 1990s. Currie looked back to the tumultous Netscape days and commented:
Twenty–first century
In 1999, Currie and Barksdale and others formed a venture capitalVenture capital
Venture capital is financial capital provided to early-stage, high-potential, high risk, growth startup companies. The venture capital fund makes money by owning equity in the companies it invests in, which usually have a novel technology or business model in high technology industries, such as...
firm called Barksdale Group to invest in business start-ups, and raised at least $180 million according to one report. As an investor and consultant, he focused on the enterprise software
Enterprise software
Enterprise software, also known as enterprise application software , is software used in organizations, such as in a business or government, contrary to software chosen by individuals...
sector of the business. Currie invested in an Internet start-up called Flipboard
Flipboard
Flipboard is a social magazine application and company founded in 2010 by Mike McCue and Evan Doll, based out of Palo Alto, California in the United States for Apple's iPad tablet computer. The application is designed to collect the content of social networks and other websites and present them in...
in 2010. Currie has affiliations with numerous companies including Corsair Communications, Critical Path, Inkling, Listen.com, Kodak Imaging Network, Kontiki, IPVALUE Management, Oracle America, Tellme Networks, Zantaz, InfoSpace.com, Clearwire, CNET, Safeco, and Palamon Capital Partners. He serves on the board of directors for many firms.
Currie's advice was sought by Facebook chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg
Mark Zuckerberg
Mark Elliot Zuckerberg is an American computer programmer and Internet entrepreneur. He is best known for co-creating the social networking site Facebook, of which he is chief executive and president...
in 2010.