Randy Komisar is an American technology attorney, executive, and author living in

Silicon Valley Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that is a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical area of the Santa Clara Valley ...

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

. Komisar is the co-founder of Claris, former CEO of Lucas Arts Entertainment,

Chief Financial Officer A chief financial officer (CFO) is an officer of a company or organization who is assigned the primary responsibility for making decisions for the company for projects and its finances; i.a.: financial planning, management of financial risks, ...

of GO Corp, and the "virtual CEO" of

TiVo TiVo ( ) is a digital video recorder (DVR) developed and marketed by Xperi (previously by TiVo Corporation and TiVo Inc.) and introduced in 1999. TiVo provides an on-screen guide of scheduled broadcast programming television programs, whose fea ...

Early career

Komisar attended

Brown University Brown University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. It is the List of colonial colleges, seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the US, founded in 1764 as the ' ...

for undergraduate studies and received a J.D. from

Harvard Law School Harvard Law School (HLS) is the law school of Harvard University, a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, Harvard Law School is the oldest law school in continuous operation in the United ...

. He practiced law in the

Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

area until he managed the legal aspects of the acquisition of

Pixar Pixar (), doing business as Pixar Animation Studios, is an American animation studio based in Emeryville, California, known for its critically and commercially successful computer-animated feature films. Pixar is a subsidiary of Walt Disney ...

Steve Jobs Steven Paul Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011) was an American businessman, inventor, and investor best known for co-founding the technology company Apple Inc. Jobs was also the founder of NeXT and chairman and majority shareholder o ...

. Following the acquisition, he went to work for

Apple An apple is a round, edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus'' spp.). Fruit trees of the orchard or domestic apple (''Malus domestica''), the most widely grown in the genus, are agriculture, cultivated worldwide. The tree originated ...

, where he worked on the project to license the

Macintosh operating systems Mac operating systems were developed by Apple Inc. in a succession of two major series. In 1984, Apple debuted the operating system that is now known as the classic Mac OS with its release of the System 1, original Macintosh System Software. Th ...

Apollo Computer Apollo Computer Inc. was an American technology corporation headquartered and founded in Chelmsford, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1980 by William Poduska (a founder of Prime Computer) and others. Apollo Computer developed and produced Apoll ...

. Following the refusal of the board to license the operating system, Komisar accepted a job to co-found Claris.

Claris

Apple decided to spin software products off to a third party, creating Claris in 1987. Komisar was asked by Bill Campbell to become a co-founder of the company and ran a number of acquisitions. While at Claris, Komisar negotiated deals with

Filemaker FileMaker is a cross-platform relational database application developed by Claris International, a subsidiary of Apple Inc. It integrates a database engine with a graphical user interface ( GUI) and security features, allowing users to visu ...

, which the company would morph into over time, but failed to negotiate an attempt to acquire

Quark A quark () is a type of elementary particle and a fundamental constituent of matter. Quarks combine to form composite particles called hadrons, the most stable of which are protons and neutrons, the components of atomic nucleus, atomic nuclei ...

. Claris would later announce intentions to go public. Apple declined the option for Claris to file for an

initial public offering An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investm ...

, leading to each executive selling their shares.

Chief Executive and Venture Capital

Komisar would go on to work with a number of notable technology startups: * Komisar served on the

Board of Directors A board of directors is a governing body that supervises the activities of a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government agency. The powers, duties, and responsibilities of a board of directors are determined by government regulatio ...

of WebTV prior to the 1995 acquisition by

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

* CFO of GO Corp * CEO of LucasArts Entertainment * CEO of Crystal Dynamics * Originally intending to create a home network device,

would digitize video on a set top box for a monthly service at the suggestion of andy Komisarand make him a founding director. * Komisar would serve as "virtual CEO of GlobalGiving * Early-stage investment advisor at

Kleiner Perkins Kleiner Perkins, formerly Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB), is an American venture capital firm which specializes in investing in incubation, early stage and growth companies. Since its founding in 1972, the firm has backed entrepreneur ...

(since 2005) * Serves on the board and advises Gusto, Motiv,

Veem Veem, formerly Align Commerce, is a San Francisco–based online Global payments network, global payments platform founded in 2014 by Marwan Forzley and Aldo Carrascoso. The company uses a payment routing method they refer to as "multi-rail techn ...

, Nav * Served on the board and advised Graphiq until they were acquired by

Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon (company), an American multinational technology company * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek myth ...

* Served on the board and advised

Google Nest Google Nest is a line of smart home products including smart speakers, smart displays, streaming devices, thermostats, smoke detectors, routers and security systems including smart doorbells, cameras and smart locks. The Nest brand n ...

until they were acquired by

Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...

* Served on the board and advised RPX Corporation until they were acquired by HGGC

Author

Komisar has written a number of books about entrepreneurialism and

venture capital Venture capital (VC) is a form of private equity financing provided by firms or funds to start-up company, startup, early-stage, and emerging companies, that have been deemed to have high growth potential or that have demonstrated high growth in ...

: *''The Monk and the Riddle'' *''Getting to Plan B'' *''I F*cking Love That Company'' *''Straight Talk for Startups''

Non-Profit Work

* Roadtrip Nation Advisory Board * Orrick's Women's Leadership Board

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Komisar, Randy Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Place of birth missing (living people) American chief financial officers American lawyers American male non-fiction writers American technology chief executives Brown University alumni Harvard Law School alumni People from the San Francisco Bay Area