Mike McCue

Mike McCue (born 1968) is an American technology entrepreneur, who founded or co-founded such companies as Paper Software, Tellme Networks and Flipboard.

McCue grew up in New York, New York, the oldest of six children. His parents, Lucy Ann and Patrick J., were running a small ad agency. When McCue was in his early teens, his father, who lacked health insurance, was diagnosed with terminal cancer and the family was forced out of their home and had to rely on food stamps. After his father died of cancer, McCue chose to help his family instead of joining the US Air Force Academy, and never went to college.

In June 2013, McCue hosted U.S. President Barack Obama at his home in Palo Alto for a Democratic fundraiser that cost each guest $2500.

McCue was fascinated by software and began his first business in his early teens, writing video games at home that he licensed to magazines and in the end to a games publisher. He had wanted to be an astronaut and his first real app, he said, was a space shuttle flight simulator he wrote in TI-BASIC in 1981.

Admiring technology entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs, Mitch Kapor and Bill Gates, McCue joined IBM in 1986, giving up a congressional nomination to attend the US Air Force Academy. He was employed on a six-month temporary contract but ended up staying three-and-a-half years.

In 1989 McCue founded his first company, Paper Software, aiming "to make using a computer as easy as using a piece of paper". At first the company was not successful and McCue spent a summer digging ditches and building houses to raise funds, and then doing software design consulting for a company contracted to the pharmaceutical firm Merck & Co.

...
Wikipedia