People to Watch in 2000
Who will make big news in the business world this year? Who will emerge from relative obscurity to become a major player? To start the new year, Times business reporters selected people from their beats who they believe will be among those to watch in 2000--in Southern California, across the country and around the world. Some are well known, having made big news in previous years. Others are not exactly household names but nevertheless are likely to make a major impact in their fields.
Of course, there’s no way to predict just what’s going to happen in the next 12 months. Nor can any such list be complete--there’s always the come-from-nowhere phenom who’ll surprise everyone. But it’s a good bet that if you follow the fortunes of these 22, you’ll see the top business stories of 2000 unfold.
Bill Gross of Idealab
He’s the e-commerce strategist behind such Southern California success stories as Internet search firm GoTo.com and free online service provider NetZero.
He’s 41-year-old Bill Gross, one of the first people to recognize the commercial value of the Internet. His Pasadena-based Internet incubator, Idealab, has produced more than two dozen companies since 1996, most based in Southern California. Five have gone public and now have market values in the billions of dollars. Early investors included Steven Spielberg and Compaq Computer Chairman Ben Rosen.
This year, watch for Gross to take his Web business incubator public in an initial stock offering valued at more than $100 million through investment bank Goldman, Sachs & Co. Also watch for Gross, a Caltech graduate, to continue to help young California companies form, recruit executives and raise seed capital. More Idealab companies, such as Cooking.com, could launch IPOs as well.
Idealab is also expected to go nationwide in 2000, opening operations in such cities as New York, Seattle and Boston. The firm recently opened a satellite office in Silicon Valley.
Gross was born in 1958 in Tokyo and grew up mostly in Fort Lee, N.J., and Encino. He became an entrepreneur at age 12, selling candy bars out of his locker at school, undercutting the cafeteria’s prices. But it was while watching his son play and learn that he got the idea for his first major success, educational software maker Knowledge Adventure, which he sold to Cendant Corp. for $100 million in 1997.
