MicroPro Head

This letter is concerned with a Page 1 article (Feb. 28), “Entrepreneur’s Disease,” in which I was characterized as ‘ “everything that made him a great entrepreneur made him a failure as I was a manager.’ ”

Upon reading the article in detail, however, what we see is the quote was taken out of context and from a former employee who left almost two years ago. As a result, unless one reads the article very carefully, one could be easily misled into believing that this is not merely the opinion of one or even a few past employees, but an opinion shared by many and supposedly borne out by hard number analysis uncovered in journalistic research.

However, these are the facts. In addition to being founder, I was president, chairman and chief executive officer of MicroPro International Corp. from late 1978 until Sept. 1, 1983, when I assumed the position of chairman of the board. On March 22, 1984, upon the effectiveness of MicroPro International Corp.’s public offering of equity securities, I assumed the position of chairman emeritus. All the managerial changes of my position were voluntary.

As publicly documented in the company’s offering prospectus, MicroPro’s revenue growth was enormous in every year of its existence under my direction, going from somewhat less than one-half million dollars in the first fiscal year to just shy of 45 million in the fifth year. From a computer software operations point of view, which is the company’s main business, we were profitable in every year except the first.

My success record, both as an entrepreneur and as a manager, goes considerably beyond directing one “brilliant programmer” who left in the middle of 1980. My accomplishments are well documented and include founding, organizing and managing to profitability the industry’s first wholly U.S.-owned microcomputer software subsidiaries in Europe and Japan and replacing the free-wheeling managers who were with the company in the early days with seasoned, professional managers who run the company today. I personally hired every one of them. Of course I didn’t do this by myself. Both my officers and my board of directors provided considerable assistance, as they should in any well-run company.

SEYMOUR I. RUBINSTEIN

San Rafael