Has anybody heard of Larry Burr?!

Has anybody heard of Larry Burr?

Ronald Terry Burr (born September 30, 1964) is an American entrepreneur, holder of 6 internet patents and the co-founder and original chief executive officer of NetZero currently the worlds 3rd largest Internet Service Provider. During his career he has created technology solutions for many of America's top companies, including IBM, Verizon Wireless, and Sempra Energy. Burr is a frequent guest speaker at industry conferences and was named by InfoWorld as one of the Top 50 IT executives at xSP’s, by Interactive Week as one of the 25 Top Unsung Hero's of the Net and was a finalist for Ernst & Young's Entrepreneur of the Year award.




[edit] Early life and education
Burr was born in Los Angeles, California. His father, Terry Lawrence Burr, was born in Michigan.; his mother, Melody Seith, was Born in Los Angeles, CA. Burr, an only child grew up in Pasadena near Los Angeles, where his father worked as a car salesman and later as a small business owner in the Recreational Vehicle Industry. His parents divorced when Burr was 6 years old and Burr was raised by his mother and step father Raymond Albridge, a probation officer for Los Angeles county.

Burr attended public school through 9th grade at which time he transferred to Flintridge Preparatory School for the remainder of high school. He played soccer from 3rd grade through high school. Burr was a good student until 11th grade when his mother divorced for the 2nd time at which time Burr became more interested in friends, girls and partying than preparing for college. He graduated from high school in 1982 with a grade point average of 3.0 and was voted least likely to succeed.

Growing up, a family friend, Jan Houser, was in the early computer industry in the 1960s working for Digital Equipment Corporation and Data General. Burr would spend part of his summers at Houser's rural home in Danville, California where Houser had an Eclipse and an early acoustic modem. This is how Burr was introduced to computers which would become a permanent part of his life.


[edit] Career
Skipping college Burr went straight to work in the computer industry as a programmer for Vault Corporation, creators of the Prolok Disk (US patent 4,785,361), a copy protection system used by Ashton-Tate and other early '80s software companies. Over 50 patents have now been issued based on Vault's original ground breaking technology. Leaving Vault Corporation as Vice President of software development in 1989, Burr was recruited as a senior technology consultant for IBM 's OS/2. Burr went on to co-found Impact Software which was sold in 1998 and then to co-found NetZero which was initially funded by idealab and Bill Gross and later by Draper Fisher Jurvetson and COMPAQ. NetZero went public in Sept of 1999 and now trades under the symbol (NASDAQ: UNTD). Burr then formed Westlake Venture Partners with the other 3 founders of NetZero and pooled their own personal capital to make angel investments in early stage companies.