Guide Note

Tim O’Reilly is the founder and CEO of O'Reilly Media Inc., which, in addition to being a publishing company, is noted for hosting conferences on computer technology topics such as the Web 2.0 Summit, Web 2.0 Expo and the O'Reilly Open Source Convention, among others. His Global Network Navigator was considered the first Web portal, as well as the first true commercial site on the World Wide Web. Global Network Navigator was sold to America Online for $11 million in 1995.

Fast Facts

1. Birth name: Tadhg Ó Raghallaigh
2. Born: 1954
3. Birthplace: Cork, Ireland
4. Alma mater: Harvard College, cum laude
5. Coined the term: Infoware¹
6. Reportedly coined the term: Web 2.0 in 2004²

In 1998 his support of open source software earned him InfoWorld's Industry Achievement Award. Evidence of his interest in the open source movement was seen in 2006, when he donated $10,000 to Creative Commons.

"Talking with Tim O'Reilly bears more than a little resemblance to riding the Shinkansen Bullet Train--keep up, or miss the details as they whiz by. If you've talked to him once, you know that he's a man who likes to kick back and riff on his current favorite technical topics."—Jennifer Buckendorff³

"What worries me the most are governments getting involved and backing their existing companies. The patent system is a great example where the government is clueless and is disrupting the real activity of the market. We see it in the way that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act is trying to protect the interests of existing players while stifling the future. All of this is going to drive innovation to markets in countries that are more forward-looking because the internet is of course a global phenomenon and if you outlaw something, it will simply crop up somewhere else. So our challenge as an industry and as an economy is to discover the rules by which we can create value and ultimately create wealth in this new environment. It’s not about protecting the old ways of creating wealth but rather that creative destruction has to take place. Although companies may suffer from it, I think we’ll all be better for it."—Tim O'Reilly⁴