Larry Augustin

Larry Augustin
Augustin in 2008
Born (1962-10-10) October 10, 1962 (age 62)
Alma materUniversity of Notre Dame
Stanford University
Known forChairman of SugarCRM
Founder of Geeknet
Paper billionaire during the dot-com bubble

Larry Augustin (born October 10, 1962) is a former VP at Amazon Web Services. He formerly was the chairman of the board of directors of SugarCRM.[1] He is a former venture capitalist and the founder of VA Software (now Geeknet). During the height of the dot-com bubble, Augustin was a billionaire on paper at the age of 38.

Augustin is featured in the 2001 documentary film Revolution OS.[2]

Early life and education

Augustin grew up in a suburb of Dayton, Ohio, though he spent some of his early life on a family farm in New Hampshire.[3]

After receiving a B.S. in electrical engineering from the University of Notre Dame, Augustin received a fellowship from Bell Labs to pursue a master's degree in electrical engineering from Stanford University.[3] He went to work for Bell Labs for a year and then returned to Stanford to pursue a PhD.[3]

Career

In 1993, Augustin founded VA Research (later VA Linux and Geeknet), while a Ph.D. student at Stanford. Augustin was a Stanford colleague of Jerry Yang and David Filo, the founders of Yahoo!.[4] Filo and Yang introduced Augustin to Sequoia Capital, which provided Augustin with venture capital.[3]

In November 1999, he launched SourceForge, a collaborative development environment or "forge".[1][5]

On December 9, 1999, during the dot-com bubble, VA Linux became a public company via an initial public offering and Augustin, then 38-years old, became a billionaire on paper.[6]

In August 2002, Augustin left VA Linux and from September 2002 to December 2004, he was a partner at Azure Capital Partners, where he helped lead Azure's investments in Zend Technologies and Medsphere.[1]

In 2005, Augustin joined the board of directors of SugarCRM and in May 2009, Augustin was appointed as the chief executive officer.[7]

Augustin was the CEO of SugarCRM until February 2019 when Craig Charlton was appointed the role, with. Augustin remaining the chairman of the board of directors.[8][9]

In July 2019, Augustin became a VP at Amazon Web Services. He left Amazon in 2021.[10]

Personal life

Augustin works out in a gym every day after work.[3] He is married and has a daughter who was born in 1997.[11]

References

  1. ^ a b c "SugarCRM: Board of Directors". SugarCRM. 27 May 2019.
  2. ^ "Revolution OS". Revolution OS.
  3. ^ a b c d e Forrest, Conner (November 3, 2014). "Larry Augustin: Open source pioneer. SugarCRM CEO. Gym rat". techPresident.
  4. ^ Mardesich, Jodi (July 5, 1999). "VA Linux Systems". Fortune.
  5. ^ Blankenhorn, Dana (November 17, 2009). "What a decade taught Larry Augustin". ZDNet.
  6. ^ Walsh, Diana (January 18, 2001). "VA Linux -- Easy Come, Easy Go / Stock's dramatic rise and fall leave determined workers unfazed". San Francisco Chronicle.
  7. ^ "SugarCRM Appoints Larry M. Augustin Full-Time CEO of SugarCRM" (Press release). Business Wire. November 17, 2009.
  8. ^ "VMware Rolls Out New Partner Program". Channelnomics. 2020-03-02. Retrieved 2020-03-02.
  9. ^ "SugarCRM moves into marketing automation with Salesfusion acquisition". TechCrunch. 16 May 2019. Retrieved 2020-03-02.
  10. ^ Kim, Eugene. "Amazon loses another high-profile executive who was hired to lead its cloud apps and open source efforts just 2 years ago". Business Insider. Retrieved 2023-10-31.
  11. ^ DELEVETT, PETER (June 14, 2013). "Mercury News interview: Larry Augustin, CEO, SugarCRM". Contra Costa Times.

Interviews