Seth Neiman (born June 27, 1954) is an American computer industry businessperson and

venture capitalist Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth potential or which ha ...

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

, and a professional racing driver. He is the team principal of

Flying Lizard Motorsports The Flying Lizard Motorsports group is a motorsport team from Sonoma, California, formed by Seth Neiman in early 2003. The team competed in the full American Le Mans Series season, as well as the 24 Hours of Daytona, and the 24 Hours of Le Mans. ...

, which participates in the

United SportsCar Championship The IMSA SportsCar Championship, currently known as the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship under sponsorship, is a sports car racing series based in the United States and Canada and organized by the International Motor Sports Association (IMS ...

He currently resides in

San Francisco, California San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

Youth

Neiman was born in

East Liverpool, Ohio East Liverpool is a city in southeastern Columbiana County, Ohio, United States. The population was 9,958 at the 2020 census. It lies along the Ohio River within the Upper Ohio Valley and borders Pennsylvania to the east and West Virginia to t ...

and grew up in

Dayton, Ohio Dayton () is the sixth-largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Montgomery County. A small part of the city extends into Greene County. The 2020 U.S. census estimate put the city population at 137,644, while Greater D ...

. His mother was Judith Klapper Neiman and father was Ralph Bernard Neiman. The second child of four, he had two sisters and a younger brother. He graduated from

Ohio State University The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best publ ...

with 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 philosophy and did graduate work in

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to practical disciplines (includi ...

Business career

Neiman was a system architect at Maxitron Corporation in Marin County during the mid-1980s, Bloomberg Businessweek.com: Seth D. Neiman, Executive Profile & Biography
/ref> and then Vice President of Product Development at Dahlgren Control Systems in San Francisco. In 1988, he became Vice President of Product Development for the TOPS Division of Sun Microsystems, that was developing the

TOPS Total Operations Processing System (TOPS) is a computer system for managing railway locomotives and rolling stock, known for many years of use in the United Kingdom. TOPS was originally developed between the Southern Pacific Railroad (SP), S ...

network file server system. In 1994, he joined the

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

firm Crosspoint Venture Partners, and becoming a general partner before departing. In 1995, he founded

Brocade Communications Systems Brocade is an American technology company specializing in storage networking products, now a subsidiary of Broadcom Inc. The company is known for its Fibre Channel storage networking products and technology. Prior to the acquisition, the compan ...

. Neiman served as a lead investor and board member of various

broadband In telecommunications, broadband is wide bandwidth data transmission which transports multiple signals at a wide range of frequencies and Internet traffic types, that enables messages to be sent simultaneously, used in fast internet connections. ...

computer networking A computer network is a set of computers sharing resources located on or provided by network nodes. The computers use common communication protocols over digital interconnections to communicate with each other. These interconnections are ...

companies, including

Foundry Networks Foundry Networks, Inc. was a networking hardware vendor selling high-end Ethernet switches and routers. The company was acquired by Brocade Communications Systems on December 18, 2008. History The company was founded in 1996 by Bobby R. ...

, Avanex, iPass, Shoreline,

Juniper Networks Juniper Networks, Inc. is an American multinational corporation headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. The company develops and markets networking products, including routers, switches, network management software, network security product ...

, and NexPrise. He has been Chairman of the Board of eSilicon Corporation since 2011, and a Director at AlephCloud Systems Inc. since 2013. He is also a Director at the facial expression recognition system company Emotient, Inc. Seth Neiman Flying Lizard Porsche LBGP 2012

Seth Neiman Flying Lizard Porsche LBGP 2012

Racing career

Neiman formed

team in 2003. In 2005, he competed in the ALMS GT2 class for the Porsche team as well as finishing third in GT2 class in the

24 Hours of Le Mans The 24 Hours of Le Mans (french: link=no, 24 Heures du Mans) is an endurance-focused sports car race held annually near the town of Le Mans, France. It is the world's oldest active endurance racing event. Unlike fixed-distance races whose ...

. He finished 4th at Le Mans the following year and finished 9th in ALMS GT2 points for the same team in 2006. He also drove in four

SCCA World Challenge The GT World Challenge America is a North American auto racing series launched in 1990 by the Sports Car Club of America. It has been managed by the Stephane Ratel Organisation since 2018, and has been sanctioned by the United States Auto Club ...

races in the Touring Car class. In 2007, he finished 10th in ALMS and the car failed to finish at Le Mans. In 2008, he captured a career best 5th place in ALMS GT2 points and finished 6th at Le Mans. In 2009, he again failed to finish at Le Mans and finished 7th in ALMS points. He returned to the Flying Lizards team he owns in 2010, and competed in his first

24 Hours of Daytona The 24 Hours of Daytona, also known as the Rolex 24 At Daytona for sponsorship reasons, is a 24-hour sports car endurance race held annually at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Florida. It is run on the Sports Car Course layo ...

, finishing 9th overall and 2nd in GT.Sulka, Mike
2010 Daytona 24: Grand Am Final Race Results – Porche, Action Express Racing Win!
''PaddockTalk'', January 21, 2010, Retrieved 2010-07-22

24 Hours of Le Mans results

IMSA SportsCar Championship results

( key)(Races in bold indicate pole position, Results are overall/class)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Neiman, Seth 1954 births Living people 24 Hours of Daytona drivers 24 Hours of Le Mans drivers American computer businesspeople American Le Mans Series drivers American venture capitalists Businesspeople from Ohio Businesspeople from San Francisco Racing drivers from Dayton, Ohio Racing drivers from San Francisco Rolex Sports Car Series drivers Sun Microsystems people WeatherTech SportsCar Championship drivers People from East Liverpool, Ohio