Mike Homer, Technology Pioneer and Center for Responsible Business Supporter, Passes Away
February 9, 2009
Silicon Valley technology veteran Mike Homer, Haas BS 81, a dedicated supporter of the Haas School’s Center for Responsible Business, died Feb. 1 after a long battle with a rare brain disease. He was 50.
Homer played a major role in the early development of computing and the Internet, first at Apple as then-CEO John Scully’s technical advisor and then at Netscape as VP of marketing. As he became well known in Silicon Valley as an influential technology leader and angel investor, Homer gave back to the Haas community as a founding funder of the Center for Responsible Business and chair of the Center’s advisory board.
"Mike Homer was a coach, a mentor, a friend, and a true hero," said Kellie McElhaney, the Center's founding executive director, who dedicated her new book to Homer. "Mike was a real beacon of acting in the best interest of society through his business power."
From humble blue-collar beginnings in San Francisco, Homer made his way to the upper echelons of the high-tech world through focus, determination, long hours, and a fortuitous penchant for computers.
To put himself through UC Berkeley, Homer held down a full-time supermarket job. At graduation, he landed a job as a computer applications programmer, but was soon after snatched up by Apple to develop systems software. Hit with startup fever, Homer left Apple in 1991 to head marketing for GO, one of the first developers of mobile hand-held computers.
When venture capitalist John Doerr recruited him as the VP of marketing for browser company Netscape in 1994, Homer became a major player in the creation of the commercial Internet. Homer wrote Netscape’s business plan and helped raise the last crucial round of private financing before its initial public offering in 1995, according to the New York Times. After Netscape was acquired by America Online in 2000, Homer went on to start another technology company, Kontiki, a provider of video-on-demand software.
"It's taken me a while to figure out that being involved in business shouldn't just be about making money," Homer said in a CalBusiness article in 2005. "It should be about contributing to society."
As a founding funder of the Center, Homer hoped to teach students that they can both make money and make the world a better place at the same time.
Homer is survived by his wife, Kristina, and three children, James, Jack, and Lucy, as well as his mother, Irene, and his sister, Sue. A memorial service for Homer was held in Menlo Park, Calif., on Feb. 5.
