Richard Sabot (February 16, 1944 – July 6, 2005) was an
economist,
scholar,
farmer, and
Internet pioneer who was co-founder of
Tripod.com
Tripod.com is a web hosting service owned by Lycos. Originally aiming its services to college students and young adults, it was one of several sites trying to build online communities during the 1990s. As such, Tripod formed part of the first wav ...
, one of the first and most successful
dot-coms, in 1992. (It was subsequently sold to
Lycos in 1998) He was also a co-founder of Eziba (later acquired by
Overstock.com), an Internet venture which sold handcrafted goods from artisans around the world. He was a professor emeritus of economics at
Williams College, and previously taught at
Yale University,
Oxford University, and
Columbia University. He was a leading figure in building the Internet economy of
Williamstown, Massachusetts, where the
Green River ran past enough digital businesses in the
dot-com era
The dot-com bubble (dot-com boom, tech bubble, or the Internet bubble) was a stock market bubble in the late 1990s, a period of massive growth in the use and adoption of the Internet.
Between 1995 and its peak in March 2000, the Nasdaq Comp ...
to earn the nickname "Silicon River"
He was born in
New York City and attended college at the
University of Pennsylvania and completed his doctorate at
Oxford University. He subsequently worked for ten years at the
World Bank and was also a senior advisor to the
Inter-American Development Bank
The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB or IADB) is an international financial institution headquartered in Washington, D.C., United States of America, and serving as the largest source of development financing for Latin America and the Caribb ...
and
International Food Policy Research Institute. He wrote or edited a dozen books on development economics and was co-author of several influential papers in the field, including ''The East Asian Miracle: Economic Growth and Public Policy''.
He served on the board of directors of several companies including
Lycos,
Geekcorps, and the
International Executive Service Corps. He was an active member of the executive board of the
Center for Global Development; an Honorary Fellow of
Pembroke College,
Oxford University (UK); and a member of the Boards of Overseers of the College of Arts and Sciences of the
University of Pennsylvania and of
Colby College.
At the time of his death, Sabot was launching a new business, Cricket Creek Farm, focused on producing organic milk and specialty cheeses. He died in 2005, aged 61, of a heart attack near his home in
Williamstown, Massachusetts, and was survived by his wife, Jude Sabot and their four children.
External links
Obituary in Berkshire Eagle
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sabot, Dick
1944 births
2005 deaths
Economists from New York (state)
American computer businesspeople
Businesspeople from New York City
People from Williamstown, Massachusetts
University of Pennsylvania alumni
Alumni of the University of Oxford
Williams College faculty
Yale University faculty
Columbia University faculty
American male non-fiction writers
Center for Global Development
Economists from Massachusetts
20th-century American economists
20th-century American businesspeople
20th-century American male writers