Mike Harding
Updated May 2012
Innovates for Fun and Profit

I am an entreprenerd; I mix business and technology to solve hard problems. Over my 25 year career, I have founded six startups and have had four successful exits. One of these startups was a dismal failure, for which I bear complete responsibility. It represents at its worst "the most expensive business school in the world" and at its best "a valuablelearning experience about business, technology, and self."

As Winston Churchill said "Success is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm." Couple that sentiment with learning something new and improving with each iteration and we're on to something.

My present project is re.vu (pronounced "review") - the cure for the common resume. Create your re.vu today.

Languages
Quote
Job Duties

Skill Proficiency
Vital Stats
7000
Books Devoured
48
$M - Largest Deal Won
6
Startups Founded/Co-founded
Timeline

Engineer/Entrepreneur

  • Early Start-up Career
  • Jan 1, 1984 - Jan 1, 1997
  • I founded several companies including the Job Journal, PonyExpress Internet Mail Services, WebFrame Enterprises, and Vertical Concepts with a success exit from each company.

Co-founder, CTO

  • Servlet.com
  • Jan 1, 1997 - Jan 1, 1999
  • Co-founder and CTO of Servlet. Founded to create Java web servers to compete with the likes of Weblogic. Due to errors in my judgment, I drove the company into the ground and it died. It was the most expensive graduate course in business I could have selected.

Various Engineering

  • Early Standard Career
  • Jan 1, 1987 - Jan 1, 1997
  • While moving in and out of startups, I also held positions with increasing responsibility as an employee with the US Navy, EBMUD, Charles Schwab & Co, and Sun Microsystems. I started this phase as a junior programmer/analyst and ended as an engineering director.

Vice President

  • Sun Microsystems
  • Jan 1, 1999 - Jun 1, 2006
  • I rejoined Sun in 1999 to help get network based services for Sun customers established and grew through the Director ranks to a Vice President leading a business unit. During my tenure, I reduced costs from ~$50M/year to ~$10M/ year, refreshed the product line with new content, packaging, and pricing, and grew revenue from $0 to $16M/year upon my departure.In a prior role, I led the team that designed a new proactive service suite based on risk index that grew from $0 to over $300M/year.

Managing Director

  • Montara Ventures
  • Jun 1, 2006 - Current
  • After making the decision to leave Sun, I established Montara Ventures, an umbrella company for activities including, web publishing, angel investing, startup advisory services, and other projects.The primary project undertaken under the auspices of Montara Ventures is a renewable energy project, a hybrid geothermal/solar thermal/wind installation on 2 square miles of land in Churchill County, Nevada. This project is on-going and is in the environmental assessment phase. Using a common operations and distribution infrastructure, this plant will operate at over 500 megawatts of peak generation when fully operational.

VP/GM Developer Products & Programs

  • Juniper Networks
  • May 31, 2008 - Mar 21, 2012
  • I've got the most exciting and best job at Juniper leading the developer team. We are working to catalyze a developer ecosystem on Juniper's software platforms: Junos, Junos Space, Junos Pulse, and Junosphere. Check it out at http://www.juniper.net/developer/ and follow us on Twitter @JunosDeveloper

Co-founder, Board Member

  • re.vu
  • Apr 1, 2011 - Current
  • Along with Steve Years and Bart Clarkson, I co-founded re.vu (pronounced "review.") This idea was catalyzed from an experience I had in representing myself for a new opportunity. It seemed like after 500 years of text-based, chronological resumes there might be a chance to improve them and create a mechanism for people to more accurately and fully represent themselves using modern, visual technologies.Get your re.vu today: http://re.vu/
Pastimes
Interests Over Time