Mike Cassidy is an American entrepreneur, and was CEO and co-founder of four previous Internet start-ups including Stylus Innovation, Direct Hit,

Xfire Xfire (pronounced "X-Fire") was a proprietary freeware instant messaging service for gamers that also served as a game server browser with various other features. It was available for Microsoft Windows. Xfire was originally developed by Ult ...

, and Ruba.com.
'Start-up King' Mike Cassidy In January 2012, he became director of product management at

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

and led

Project Loon Loon LLC was an Alphabet Inc. subsidiary working on providing Internet access to rural and remote areas. The company used high-altitude balloons in the stratosphere at an altitude of to to create an aerial wireless network with up to 1 Mbit/s ...

with Google In April 2017 it was reported he is working on a clean energy startup, Apollo Fusion, using a hybrid reactor technology based on fusion power.Bloomberg Technology
Former Google Vice President Starts a Company Promising Clean and Safe Nuclear Energy

Education

Cassidy was educated at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

(BS '85, MS '86 in

Aerospace Engineering Aerospace engineering is the primary field of engineering concerned with the development of aircraft and spacecraft. It has two major and overlapping branches: aeronautical engineering and astronautical engineering. Avionics engineering is si ...

Harvard Business School Harvard Business School (HBS) is the graduate business school of Harvard University, a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. It is consistently ranked among the top business schools in the world and offers a large full-time MBA p ...

(1991), and studied jazz piano at the

Berklee College of Music Berklee College of Music is a private music college in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the largest independent college of contemporary music in the world. Known for the study of jazz and modern American music, it also offers college-level cours ...

.Notable Biographies
Mike Cassidy.

Career

His first success, Stylus Innovation, was started with $500 each from Cassidy and his two co-founders,

Krisztina Holly Krisztina Holly, known by her colleagues as 'Z' is a Hungarian American innovator, entrepreneur, and adventurer. Holly is best known as the creator of the first TEDx, the founding executive director of the Deshpande Center for Technological Inn ...

and John Barrus, and subsequently won the MIT 10K (now called the

MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition The MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition is a student-managed business plan competition, where undergraduates and postgraduates from various programs and all levels at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology ( MIT) organize and enter the comp ...

).VentureBeat
How many times can you bet on this guy? The company was later sold to

Artisoft Vertical Communications, Inc. is a corporation that specializes in cloud and premises-based private branch exchanges, i.e., business telephone systems. Vertical Communications changed its name on January 1, 2005 from Artisoft, Inc. after acquirin ...

for $13 million in 1996.VentureHacks
Cassidy and speed. His second effort was early Internet search engine Direct Hit, which was sold to

Ask Jeeves Ask.com (originally known as Ask Jeeves) is a question answering–focused e-business founded in 1996 by Garrett Gruener and David Warthen in Berkeley, California. The original software was implemented by Gary Chevsky, from his own design. Warth ...

for $532.5 million in January 2000 only 500 days after launch. Cassidy's next effort was

, a freeware instant messaging service aimed at gamers. Xfire was sold to

Viacom Viacom, an abbreviation of Video and Audio Communications, may refer to: * Viacom (1952–2006), a former American media conglomerate * Viacom (2005–2019), a former company spun off from the original Viacom * Viacom18, a joint venture between Par ...

on April 25, 2006 for $110 million. After a stint as an

EIR In Norse mythology, Eir (Old Norse: , "protection, help, mercy"Orchard (1997:36).) is a goddess or valkyrie associated with medical skill. Eir is attested in the ''Poetic Edda'', compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional sources; th ...

Benchmark Capital Benchmark is a venture capital firm based in San Francisco that provides seed money to startups. History The firm's most successful investment was a 1997 investment of $6.7 million in eBay for 22.1% of the company. In 2011, it invested $12 mill ...

,GameDaily Interview
Mike Cassidy on Leaving Xfire, Joining Benchmark Capital. Mike founded Ruba with Arnaud Weber,Ruba
Discover your next perfect trip who was previously a technical lead for the Chrome browser project at

. Most recently, Cassidy co-founded and served as CEO of Apollo Fusion, an electric in-space satellite propulsion company. The company was acquired by Astra (NASDAQ:ASTR) on June 7, 2021 for $145 million.Apollo acquired by Astra
Astra to acquire spacecraft propulsion company Apollo Fusion. Cassidy is perhaps best known for his promotion of "speed as the primary business strategy." He has given numerous talks on the subject, and his Slideshare presentation on the subject has received over 75,900 views.Slideshare Speed Presentation
Speed as THE Primary Business Strategy.

Awards

Mike is also the recipient of the

DEMO Demo, usually short for demonstration, may refer to: Music and film *Demo (music), a song typically recorded for reference rather than release * ''Demo'' (Behind Crimson Eyes), a 2004 recording by the band Behind Crimson Eyes * ''Demo'' (Deafhea ...

Lifetime Achievement award.DEMO
Lifetime Achievement Awards Fall 2009.

References

External links

Xfire.com

Ruba.com

Michael Cassidy official site

A panel discussion with Mike Cassidy
''

Stanford Graduate School of Business The Stanford Graduate School of Business (also known as Stanford GSB) is the graduate business school of Stanford University, a private research university in Stanford, California. For several years it has been the most selective business schoo ...

''
Apollo Fusion
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cassidy, Mike American computer businesspeople Living people Google employees Year of birth missing (living people)