Charles Geschke

Cofounder, Adobe System

          At Xerox PARC, Charles Geschke and John Warnock developed a language called interpress that would allow any computer to talk to any printer. PARC was amazing place; the recruiting for computer science was done primarily by a guy named Bob Taylor. He had been head of ARPA’s Information Processing Technology Group which had funded many of the universities that started up in computing in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s.

            When Xerox seemed slow commercialize, this technology Geschke and Warnock started their own company, Adobe, to produce a successor of Interpress called Postscript. John and Geschke quit their jobs at the same time. Geschke was looking at a map and he noticed adobe creek, it was right behind his house and he said to John, how about adobe? John agreed and that’s how Adobe system came to be.

            PostScript made it possible to describe complex documents in a simple form. In 1983, Adobe partnered with Apple computer to create Apple’s new Laser Writer Printer. When it was introduced in 1985, it created the “desktop publishing” industry. Adobe went public in 1986 and is recognized industry leader in graphics and desktop publishing software through its typefaces and its popular photo shops, illustrator, and acrobat applications.

            Three things I learn from Charles Geschke are: first, you can’t be one product company. There’s a very high risk when you’re single-product Company that eventually a combination of changes in the competitive landscape will eventually cause you to begin losing market shares, and once you lose market sales, then your revenue and earning begin to fall. Second, it is good to have a good relationship and with your employees so that you will work as a team that will make you successful in your work and lastly, have passion about what is going to do. Do not do or enter on such thing if you don’t have passion to it because you will surely not achieve success. Work smart and no0t long, because we need to preserve all of our life, not just our work life.