Tim O'Reilly Founder of O'Reilly Media publishing company Date of Birth: 06.06.1954 Country: USA

1. Founder of O'Reilly Media
2. Early Life and Education
3. O'Reilly Media
4. Confrontation with Amazon.com and Patent Law Reform
5. Board Memberships and Investments

Founder of O'Reilly Media

Tim O'Reilly is an American publisher and activist who co-founded software company O'Reilly Media. He is known as an influential figure in the open source software movement and is considered a key advocate of Web 2.0.

Early Life and Education

O'Reilly developed a passion for literature from a young age. After graduating summa cum laude from Harvard College in 1975 with a Bachelor of Arts in English, he became immersed in technical computer documentation.

O'Reilly Media

In 1978, O'Reilly founded O'Reilly, a company initially focused on writing technical documentation for software products on demand. Under his leadership, the company evolved into a major publisher specializing in computer literature. Following the dot-com bust in 2000, O'Reilly Media expanded into conference organization.

Confrontation with Amazon.com and Patent Law Reform

In 2001, O'Reilly engaged in a public dispute with Amazon.com, protesting the company's attempt to patent one-click technology, which was seen as targeting competitor Barnes & Noble. The controversy led to O'Reilly and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos advocating for patent law reform in the United States.

Board Memberships and Investments

O'Reilly served on the boards of MySQL AB and Macromedia in the early 2000s, until their respective acquisitions by Sun Microsystems and Adobe. As of the mid-2010s, he remained on the boards of Safari Books Online, Maker Media, and PeerJ. He was an early investor in several notable tech companies, including Blogger, Delicious, Foursquare, Bitly, and Chumby.