Meanwhile, Tandy was doing all right, being very active in niche markets and selling GRiDPad to insurance, oil and other industrial companies. But Hawkins, like any other talented man, was also an extremist. He wanted to see his idea in the mass market. He wanted to create a universal and low-cost device suitable for everyday use by everyone. So, Hawkins left Tandy. He left because he felt he would be able to put into life his ideas by himself.

That is how Palm Computing was founded in 1992. Of course, Jeff didn’t have as much money, as, say, Apple spent on Newton. In fact, he didn’t have any money at all. What he did have was reputation and contacts he made when working for Tandy. These proved worth more than money. Hawkins took half a million dollars from each of two venture funds, plus $300 thousand from Tandy as the license fee. With $1.3 million in the pocket, no plan on his hands and no product prototype, he started out.

Donna Dubinsky

It’s often hard to single out just one person as the founder of a company. There were Noyce and Moore in Intel, Jobs and Wozniak in Apple. One may be the leader, but the other is indispensable, too. The first hired CEO of Palm was Donna Dubinsky. She was also the second item in the Palm’s success formula. The engineer and the businesswoman were getting along together most successfully.

Donna’s career was first connected with Apple. In 1981, after several unlucky attempts, she got a job with Apple. The company had impressed her with its Apple II. Apple was flourishing then. By 1985, Dubinsky was already responsible for a large share of Apple’s distribution. But there came the critical 1985 year. Wozniak left in February, and in the spring Donna was notified about the changes in Apple’s policy with no place reserved for her division. After unfruitful efforts to stand her ground, Donna was going to follow Wozniak.

However, she stayed with Apple for a while, working under Bill Campbell. She was deep into selling the company’s produce outside the USA. For example, she worked for half a year in Australia. A year later, Campbell, who had become a head of the independent (although sponsored by Apple) software manufacturer Claris, offered her to become vice-president of international sales. In the next four years, working with enthusiasm and gusto, she drove the share of her department to 50% of Claris’ total income. Then Apple bought up the Claris stock and gained complete control over the company. There was no gusto anymore; Donna didn’t want to work for Apple again. She retired, moved to Paris and studied painting for a year…

This year helped her to calm down and get the urge for activity. She called Campbell: “I want to grow up a company," she told him. "I want to be a president. Do you have any ideas?” It turned out that Campbell then headed the most promising, since Newton, start-up in the pen computing field – GO (it was closed up in 1994 after the first failure). Campbell calls up Bruce Dunlevie, “Bruce, I’ve been interviewed for vice-president of technical development for a firm financed by your fund. You didn’t take me, but mentioned that you were looking for CEO for this company. Are you still?”