James G. Treybig is the founder of

Tandem Computers Tandem Computers, Inc. was the dominant manufacturer of fault-tolerant computer systems for ATM networks, banks, stock exchanges, telephone switching centers, and other similar commercial transaction processing applications requiring maximum up ...

, which designed and manufactured the first

fault tolerant Fault tolerance is the property that enables a system to continue operating properly in the event of the failure of one or more faults within some of its components. If its operating quality decreases at all, the decrease is proportional to the ...

computers, in 1974. These pioneering computers were marketed to

transaction processing Transaction processing is information processing in computer science that is divided into individual, indivisible operations called ''transactions''. Each transaction must succeed or fail as a complete unit; it can never be only partially compl ...

customers, who used them for ATMs, banks, stock exchanges, and military applications.

Early life and education

Treybig grew up in

Bellaire, Texas Bellaire is a city in southwest Harris County, Texas, United States, within the metropolitan area.. Retrieved on January 24, 2010. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the city population was 17,202. It is surrounded by the cities of Houston and West ...

, and attended Bellaire High School from 1956 to 1959. He then went to

Rice University William Marsh Rice University (Rice University) is a private research university in Houston, Texas. It is on a 300-acre campus near the Houston Museum District and adjacent to the Texas Medical Center. Rice is ranked among the top universities ...

, where he received a

B.A. Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four yea ...

degree in 1963 and a

bachelor's degree A bachelor's degree (from Middle Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate academic degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six ...

in electrical engineering in 1964; following that he went to Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he earned an MBA in 1968.

Career

Treybig's first job after graduating from Rice was as a salesman for

Texas Instruments Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) is an American technology company headquartered in Dallas, Texas, that designs and manufactures semiconductors and various integrated circuits, which it sells to electronics designers and manufacturers globa ...

. After receiving his MBA, he went to work for Hewlett-Packard (HP) in 1968, serving as marketing section manager on the

HP 3000 The HP 3000 series is a family of 16-bit and 32-bit minicomputers from Hewlett-Packard. It was designed to be the first minicomputer with full support for time-sharing in the hardware and the operating system, features that had mostly been limite ...

project, the first ever commercial minicomputer with a full featured operating system with

time-sharing In computing, time-sharing is the sharing of a computing resource among many users at the same time by means of multiprogramming and multi-tasking.DEC Timesharing (1965), by Peter Clark, The DEC Professional, Volume 1, Number 1 Its emergence ...

, released in 1973. In 1973, he joined Kleiner Perkins venture capital company. In 1974, he founded

, funded in part by Kleiner Perkins. Treybig served as CEO of Tandem Computers from 1974 to 1996. The business plan included detailed ideas for building a corporate culture reflecting Treybig's values, such as paid six week sabbaticals each 4 years for all employees, an annual gift of 100 shares of Tandem stock to all employees, a weekly all-employee party, and a world-wide closed circuit monthly telecast to keep employees informed. Under his leadership, Tandem delivered its first product in 1976, first issued public stock in 1977, and in 1980 was ranked by ''Inc.'' magazine as the fastest-growing public company in America. When Treybig left the company in 1996, Tandem was a $2.3 billion company employing approximately 8,000 people worldwide. (Tandem was acquired by

Compaq Compaq Computer Corporation (sometimes abbreviated to CQ prior to a 2007 rebranding) was an American information technology company founded in 1982 that developed, sold, and supported computers and related products and services. Compaq produced ...

in 1997, Compaq was merged with HP in 2002.)

Post Tandem

Treybig was then briefly associated with

Austin Ventures Austin Ventures (AV) is a private equity firm focused on venture capital and growth equity investments in business services and supply chain, financial services, new media, Internet, and information services companies nationally with a focus o ...

; and in August 2002, he became a venture partner at

New Enterprise Associates New Enterprise Associates (NEA) is an American-based venture capital firm. NEA focuses investment stages ranging from seed stage through growth stage across an array of industry sectors. With ~$25 billion in committed capital, NEA is one of the w ...

, an association that continues to the present. Treybig was featured in the documentary film ''

Something Ventured "Something Ventured" is a 2011 documentary film investigating the emergence of American venture capitalism in the mid-20th century. ''Something Venture''d follows the stories of the venture capitalists who worked with entrepreneurs to start and b ...

'', which premiered in 2011.

Personal life

Treybig lives in

Austin, Texas Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas, as well as the seat and largest city of Travis County, with portions extending into Hays and Williamson counties. Incorporated on December 27, 1839, it is the 11th-most-populous city ...

, and is active on amateur radio ( 6-meter band,

call sign In broadcasting and radio communications, a call sign (also known as a call name or call letters—and historically as a call signal—or abbreviated as a call) is a unique identifier for a transmitter station. A call sign can be formally assign ...

W6JKV), a hobby he has enjoyed since high school.Jim Treybig's W6JKV website
/ref> He continues to play

racquetball Racquetball is a racquet sport and a team sport played with a hollow rubber ball on an indoor or outdoor court. Joseph Sobek invented the modern sport of racquetball in 1950, adding a stringed racquet to paddleball in order to increase velo ...

, as he has since college.

References

External links

Jimmy Treybig: NEA Bio
- New Enterprise Associates venture capital firm
More about Jimmy Treybig
- Jimmy Treybig website Amateur radio people Rice University alumni Living people American company founders 1940 births {{compu-bio-stub