48] and Zilog,[149] while graduate school alumni have co-founded companies such as DHL,[150] KeyHole Inc (known now as Google Earth),[151] Sun Microsystems,[152] and The Learning Company.[153] Berkeley alumni have also led various technology companies such as Electronic Arts,[154] Google,[155] Adobe Systems,[156] and Qualcomm.[157]

alheim (BS 1984) have physically reached out to the stars, orbiting the earth in NASA's fleet of space shuttles.
Undergraduate alumni have founded or co-founded such companies as Apple Computer,[131] Intel,[132] LSI Logic[133] The Gap,[134] MySpace,[135] PowerBar,[136] Berkeley Systems,[137] Bolt, Beranek and Newman[138] (which created a number of underlying technologies that govern the Internet), Chez Panisse,[139] GrandCentral (known now as Google Voice),[140] Advent Software,[141] HTC Corporation,[142] VIA Technologies,[142] Marvell Technology Group,[143] MoveOn.org,[137] Opsware,[144] RedOctane,[145] SanDisk,[146] Scharffen Berger Chocolate Maker,[147] VMware,[148] and Zilog,[149] while graduate school alumni have co-founded companies such as DHL,[150] KeyHole Inc (known now as Google Earth),[151] Sun Microsystems,[152] and The Learning Company.[153] Berkeley alumni have also led various technology companies such as Electronic Arts,[154] Google,[155] Adobe Systems,[156] and Qualcomm.[157]


Turing Award laureate Ken Thompson (left), BS 1965, MS 1966, with fellow laureate and colleague Dennis Ritchie (right); together, they created Unix
Berkeley alumni nurtured a number of key technologies associated with the personal computer and the development of the Internet.[158] Unix was created by alumnus Ken Thompson (BS 1965, MS 1966) along with colleague Dennis Ritchie. Alumni such as L. Peter Deutsch[159][160][161] (PhD 1973), Butler Lampson (PhD 1967), and Charles P. Thacker (BS 1967)[162] worked with Ken Thompson on Project Genie and then formed the ill-fated US Department of Defense-funded Berkeley Computer Corporation (BCC), which was scattered throughout the Berkeley campus in non-descript offices to avoid anti-war protestors.[163] After BCC failed, Deutsch, Lampson, and Thacker joined Xerox PARC, where they developed a number of pioneering computer technologies, culminating in the Xerox Alto that inspired the Apple Macintosh. In particular, the Alto used a computer mouse, which had been invented by Doug Engelbart (B.Eng 1952, Ph.D. 1955). Thompson, Lampson, Engelbart, and Thacker[164] all later received a Turing Award. Also at Xerox PARC was Ronald V. Schmidt (BS 1966, MS 1968, PhD 1971), who became known as "the man who brought Ethernet to the masses".[165] Another Xerox PARC researcher, Charles Simonyi (BS 1972), pioneered the first WYSIWIG word processor program and was recruited personally by Bill Gates to join the fledgling company known as Microsoft to create Microsoft Word. Simonyi later became the first repeat space tourist, blasting off on Russian Soyuz rockets to work at the International Space Station orbiting the earth.