Farhad Ebrahimi
founder
Quark

In 1986 Tim Gill founder of Quark met Farhad Ebrahimi, an Iran-born businessman who had moved to Colorado to pursue real estate. Gill sold him half the company and handed over daily operations. The next year the company introduced QuarkXPress; its professional layout and color control capabilities caused a stir in a desktop publishing industry accustomed to laying out pages mechanically.

Tim Gill, 27, founded Quark with a $2,000 loan from his parents after a Denver software company laid him off in 1981. A unique individual himself -- as a child he froze grasshoppers for the chance to bring them back to life -- Gill named the company after the mysterious subatomic particle. He wrote a word processing program called Word Juggler for the Apple III computer, beating the competition (including Apple) to market.

As Quark grew, its mysterious operations (e.g., no sales force) became a source of industry fascination. To build a presence in Silicon Valley, Quark in 1996 began acquiring stakes in three complementary firms. One went bankrupt, another was bought, and the third closed. In 1998 Quark made a failed bid for substantially larger rival Adobe Systems, a move that had analysts and Adobe management scratching their heads.

In 2000 Quark expanded its product line to include Web-based content management software and tools to reuse old Quark documents online. Later that year Gill announced that he had sold his stake in the company; he stepped down as chairman and chief technical officer in order to donate his time and money to philanthropic endeavors.