Word: founder
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Media Laboratory, a dazzling new academic facility at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The lab's unique mission is to transform today's passive mass media, particularly TV, into flexible technologies that can respond to individual tastes. Because of advances in computers, says Nicholas Negroponte, 43, the co-founder and director, "all media are poised for redefinition. Our purpose is to enhance the quality of life in an electronic...
...matter how good the concept, it must be well executed. Experienced franchisers warn that the potential franchisees must be carefully screened, since the future success of the company depends on their reliability and hard work. Says Victoria Morton, founder of Denver-based Victory International, which franchises the Suddenly Slender and Designer Body weight-loss centers: "It's like marriage. We have to like and trust them, and they have to like and trust us." Dan Stamp, founder of Priority Management Systems, a Vancouver-based chain that helps executives organize their time, says he looks for "high self-esteem...
Some men say they hope to use their new skills to get jobs as veterinarians' assistants or as hot-walkers and groomers at racetracks when they get out of prison. Veterinarian Ron Zaidlicz, founder of the National Organization for Wild American Horses, teaches the inmates how to groom and care for the horses. In 1985 Zaidlicz and other NOWAH members rode mustangs from Colorado to Washington to lobby for better protection of the wild horses. "I was asked why I cared about horses when people were homeless and in so much trouble." Zaidlicz gestured toward a knot of inmates intently...
John Taylor recounts the 1984 assaults on Walt Disney Productions by corporate raiders in a manner the founder would have approved: brisk narrative colored in primary emotional tones. The takeover artists are sometimes attractively shrewd but heedlessly greedy -- for action as much as for power and money. The company's executives, ponderously led by President Ron Miller, are brave but inept in their resistance. Meanwhile, Walt's nephew Roy and the other heirs squabble among themselves. In the end, all concerned muddle their way to a bright new management team -- imported from Paramount and Warner Bros. -- that will restore...
...more immediate problem is oversaturation of the market. Like baseball expansion, the proliferation of comics has led to a diffusion of talent. "The quality is getting thinner," admits Silver Friedman, co-founder (with her ex- husband Budd) of the Improvisation club in New York. So far, however, the ranks are not dwindling. "The competition is unbelievable," says Comic Wright. "Every year I think it will level off, but it doesn't." Meantime, happy audiences seem willing to endure wisecracking dwarfs and Indian mystics in hopes that another Wright or Leno will be just beyond the next punch line...