Name: Jecca Cervero

Case Study

Chapter 32

Ron Gruner

Cofounder, Alliant Computer Systems; Founder, Shareholder.com

Ron Gruner together with Craig Mundie, and Rich McAndrew founded Alliant Computer Systems in 1982 to build parallel supercomputers. They started working on Alliant with a goal of building a machine that can be used for multiprocessing for the users to achieve better performance than the fastest single-Cpu machines.

 Alliant Computer Systems was a computer company that designed and manufactured parallel computing systems. Ron Gruner was in a computer design. He worked on Data General and left in 1982 to start Alliant Computer Systems.  Together with Craig and Rich, Gruner wants to build very high-performance computer systems that provided a growth path from Digital’s Vax line of Machines, which they were topping out at half a million dollars. Their machines were provided anywhere from four to ten times the performance of Digital’s largest Vax, for maybe 50 percent more using parallel processing technology.

In 1985, after three years of work, they finished worrking on Alliant, and for the next several years Alliant was one of the leading players in the turbulent parallel computer industry. But disagreement occurred. So Gruner left Alliant in 1991 and a year after he left, the company was bankrupt.

Looking for something to do next, Gruner enjoyed being an entrepreneur so he didn’t give up, he started a new company at the opposite end of the spectrum, a web-based service business. His experience at Alliant taught him the importance of investor relations.Gruner evaluated his options for the next venture. He had specific criteria for what type of business he wanted to establish. In his time at Alliant he had observed a deficiency in how investor relations were conducted with individual investors. So, In 1992, he founded Shareholder.com with the goal of using technology to automate the process. Shareholder.com pioneered a new, broader approach toward investor relations. Shareholder.com grew steadily, and in February 2006 was acquired by NASDAQ.

Three Things Iearned

• Learn from your mistakes.
• We learn wisdom from failure much more than from success. We often discover what will do, by finding out what will not do; and probably he who never made a mistake never made a discovery
• Experience is a good teacher