Dan Bricklin

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Lore & Background

Bricklin was born in a Jewish family in Philadelphia, where he attended Akiba Hebrew Academy. He began college as a mathematics major but soon switched to computer science. He earned a Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering and computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1973, where he was a resident of Bexley Hall. After graduating, he worked for Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) on the WPS-8 team until 1976, then for FasFax, a cash register manufacturer. In 1977, he returned to education and was awarded a Master of Business Administration from Harvard University in 1979. While a student at Harvard Business School, Bricklin co-developed VisiCalc in 1979, making it the first electronic spreadsheet readily available for home and office use. It ran on an Apple II computer. In 1979, Bricklin and Frankston founded Software Arts, Inc., and began selling VisiCalc via a separate company named VisiCorp. Along with Frankston, Bricklin started writing versions for the Tandy TRS-80, Commodore PET, and the Atari 800. Soon after its launch, VisiCalc became a fast seller at $100. Software Arts also published TK/Solver and Spotlight, a desktop organizer for the IBM Personal Computer. Bricklin was chairman of Software Arts until 1985, the year that Software Arts was acquired by Lotus. He left and founded Software Garden. He founded Software Garden in 1985, a small consulting firm and developer of software applications. The company's focus was to produce and market 'Dan Bricklin's Demo Program'. He remained the president of the company until he co-founded Slate Corporation in 1990. In 1992, he became the vice president of Phoenix-based Slate corporation, and developed At Hand, a pen-based spreadsheet. When Slate closed in 1994, Bricklin returned to Software Garden. His 'Dan Bricklin's Overall Viewer' was released in November 1994. In 1995 Bricklin founded Trellix Corporation, named for Trellix Site Builder. Trellix was bought by Interland (now Web.com) in 2003, and Bricklin became Interland's chief technology officer until early 2004. He currently serves as president of Software Garden and as the chief technology officer of Alpha Software. He has released Note Taker HD, an application that integrates handwritten notes on the Apple iPad. He is also developing wikiCalc, a collaborative, basic spreadsheet running on the Web. He introduced the term 'friend-to-friend networking' on August 11, 2000, and also introduced the term 'cornucopia of the commons' about the same time.

Reader's Guide

Dan Bricklin's significance lies in his co-creation of VisiCalc, the first spreadsheet program, which transformed business and personal computing. Before VisiCalc, financial projections required manually calculated spreadsheets, and every single cell had to be recalculated by hand when a change was made. VisiCalc allowed the user to change any cell and have the entire sheet automatically recalculated, turning 20 hours of work into 15 minutes and allowing for more creativity. Its success on the Apple II is widely credited for fueling the rapid growth of the personal computer industry. Bricklin could not patent VisiCalc since software inventions were not eligible for patent protection at the time. He received the Grace Murray Hopper Award in 1981 for VisiCalc. In 1996, he was awarded the IEEE Computer Society's Computer Entrepreneur Award for pioneering the development and commercialization of the spreadsheet. He was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 2003 for the invention and creation of the electronic spreadsheet. In 2004, he was made a Fellow of the Computer History Museum for advancing the utility of personal computers by developing the VisiCalc electronic spreadsheet. His book, Bricklin on Technology, was published by Wiley in May 2009. His early projects and ideas are described in the book Programmers at Work, a collection of interviews published by Microsoft Press.

Did You Know?

• Bricklin could not patent VisiCalc because software inventions were not eligible for patent protection at the time.
• He introduced the term 'friend-to-friend networking' on August 11, 2000.
• He also introduced the term 'cornucopia of the commons' around the same time.
• VisiCalc sold for $100 and could turn 20 hours of manual spreadsheet work into 15 minutes.
• Bricklin was one of six people spotlighted when Time magazine named the computer 'Machine of the Year' in 1982.

The Birth of VisiCalc

Daniel Singer Bricklin's path to revolutionizing personal computing was neither linear nor obvious. Born in 1951 in Philadelphia to a Jewish family, he attended Akiba Hebrew Academy before pursuing mathematics at college, only to pivot toward computer science. He earned a B.S. in electrical engineering and computer science from MIT in 1973, living in Bexley Hall during his time there. After stints at Digital Equipment Corporation working on WPS-8 and at cash register maker FasFax, he returned to academia in 1977 for an MBA at Harvard. It was during that Harvard Business School period, in 1979, that he and Bob Frankston co-developed VisiCalc—the first electronic spreadsheet designed for home and office use. Running on the Apple II, the program eliminated the grueling process of manually recalculating every cell after a single change. What once consumed twenty hours of tedious arithmetic could now be completed in roughly fifteen minutes. That leap in efficiency is widely credited with igniting the explosive growth of the personal computer industry, earning Bricklin the enduring nickname 'the father of the Spreadsheet.'

An Unconventional Entrepreneurial Odyssey

Bricklin's career after VisiCalc reads less like a single trajectory and more like a series of bold reinventions. In 1979 he and Frankston launched Software Arts to commercialize their creation, selling VisiCalc through a separate entity called VisiCorp. The program became a rapid seller at a hundred dollars per copy, and the team quickly ported it to the Tandy TRS-80, Commodore PET, and Atari 800. Software Arts also shipped TK/Solver and Spotlight, a desktop organizer for the IBM Personal Computer. Bricklin served as chairman until 1985, when Lotus acquired the company. Rather than resting on his laurels, he immediately founded Software Garden, a small consulting and development firm whose flagship product let users build program demonstrations before writing a single line of code. In 1990 he co-founded Slate Corporation, where he developed At Hand, a pen-based spreadsheet, before the company folded in 1994. He then founded Trellix in 1995, which was acquired by Interland (later Web.com) in 2003. Throughout it all, he has remained president of Software Garden and now serves as chief technology officer at Alpha Software in Burlington, Massachusetts.

A Career Drenched in Recognition

The industry has not been shy about honoring Bricklin's contributions. In 1981 he received the Grace Murray Hopper Award for VisiCalc, and the following year Time magazine named the computer 'Machine of the Year,' spotlighting him among six key figures. He was inducted as a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery in 1994 and received the IEEE Computer Society's Computer Entrepreneur Award in 1996 for pioneering the spreadsheet's development and its sweeping impact on business. In 2003 he was elected to the National Academy of Engineering specifically for inventing the electronic spreadsheet, and he also collected the Wharton Infosys Business Transformation Award that same year. The Computer History Museum made him a Fellow in 2004, and Newbury College conferred an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters. He has served as a founding trustee of the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council and sat on the boards of the Software Publishers Association and the Boston Computer Society. His story also reached a broader audience through the 1996 documentary Triumph of the Nerds and the 2005 film Aardvark'd, both of which featured his account of building VisiCalc. His 2009 book, Bricklin on Technology, published by Wiley, further extended his reach into the written word.

Innovation Beyond the Spreadsheet

Even decades after VisiCalc, Bricklin has continued pushing into new territory. He released Note Taker HD, an application that brings handwritten note-taking to the Apple iPad, and he was developing wikiCalc, a collaborative, basic spreadsheet accessible through the web. His earlier 'Dan Bricklin's Overall Viewer,' launched in November 1994, was described by The New York Times as a visual way to display information within Windows-based software. Beyond product development, Bricklin has contributed to the broader technological vocabulary: on August 11, 2000, he introduced the phrase 'friend-to-friend networking,' and around the same period he coined the term 'cornucopia of the commons.' His early thinking and project history were captured in Programmers at Work, a Microsoft Press collection of interviews. He also continues to provide speaking and consulting services through Software Garden, his small company that develops and markets the software tools he creates. As CTO of Alpha Software, he helps build tools for developing cross-platform mobile business applications, keeping his hands in the practical work of software engineering well into his later career.