Barry Schuler

Barry Martin Schuler (born September 7, 1953 in Jersey City, New Jersey) is an American Internet entrepreneur and former chairman and CEO of America Online Inc. He is best known for leading the AOL team that simplified the online service provider’s user interface, making it possible for millions of consumers to gain easy access to the Internet.

Barry Schuler grew up in West New York, New Jersey. As a suburban youth, Schuler was encouraged early on by his parents to explore the arts (photography, painting and sculpture) as well as electronics. He turned his family’s basement into a darkroom while helping his father, a warehouse owner and part-time repair man, tinker with television sets and other gadgetry.

In the mid-1970s, while completing a bachelor's degree in psychology at Rutgers University, Schuler became captivated by filmmaking. In 1976, he left the university to produce and direct commercial and industrial films. An avid computer hobbyist and reader of Popular Electronics, Schuler befriended a group of technical enthusiasts who were developing software applications for microcomputers. After assembling a do-it-yourself IMSAI computer and experiencing first hand the potential of at-home computing, Schuler saw the technology’s ability to positively disrupt and enhance the way people lived and worked. In 1978, he established CMP Communications, an advertising and marketing company devoted to helping high tech entrepreneurs spread the word about the impending revolution in microcomputing.

Schuler quit CMP in 1988 and took a position as president and CEO of Cricket Software, overseeing the development and marketing of color desktop applications for Apple Computer’s Macintosh, including a Postscript driven drawing program. Cricket also developed the first color, graphical desktop presentation software, “Cricket Presents.” Cricket was ultimately sold to Computer Associates International in 1991.

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