Spencer Kimball (computer programmer)

Spencer Kimball is an American computer programmer, entrepreneur, and business executive. He is the CEO of Cockroach Labs, a company he co-founded in 2014.[1] His work as a programmer includes creating GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) while still in college,[2] and assisting the source code development of CockroachDB, the namesake software of Cockroach Labs. In addition to Cockroach Labs, Kimball was involved in the founding of other tech startups including WeGo and Viewfinder.[3]

This article is about the programmer. For the LDS Church President, see Spencer W. Kimball.

Spencer Kimball
EducationB.A., Computer Science
Alma materUniversity of California, Berkeley
OccupationCEO
EmployerCockroach Labs
Known forComputer Programming
WebsiteSpencer Kimball on LinkedIn

Early life and education

Kimball attended the University of California at Berkeley. While still a student in 1995, he developed the first version of GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) as a class project, along with his roommate Peter Mattis.[4][5] Kimball was also a member of a student club at Berkeley called the eXperimental Computing Facility (XCF).[6] During his time with XCF, he co-wrote the code for GIMP.[6] Kimball said in 1999 that, "From the first line of source code to the last, GIMP was always my 'dues' paid to the free software movement. After using emacs, gcc, Linux, etc., I really felt that I owed a debt to the community which had, to a large degree, shaped my computing development." [7] Kimball graduated with a B.A. in computer science from Berkeley in 1996.[8]

Career

Kimball left college for work, and mostly ended his relationship with the GIMP development community. He co-founded WeGo, a company providing tools for building web communities, in 1998 and served as the company's co-CTO.[9] While at XCF, he met Gene Kan, who was also a member, and the two would later begin working together on a file-sharing program for the Gnutella network, the open source Unix/Linux client gnubile.[10] In 2000, he created a web-based version of GIMP, OnlinePhotoLab.com, that was short-lived.[11] The technology was subsequently folded into Ofoto's online image manipulation tools.

Kimball started work with Google in Mountain View in 2002[12] and relocated to Google's New York offices in 2004. As one of Google's engineers, he helped spearhead Colossus, a new version of the Google File System.[13] He also worked on the Google Servlet Engine.[14]

In January 2012, Kimball launched the company Viewfinder along with Mattis and Brian McGinnis, formerly of Lehman Brothers.[15] The company developed an app that allowed social media users to share photos, chat privately, and search photo history without leaving the app.[16] The company was acquired by Square, Inc. in December 2013.[17] Kimball moved to Square's New York City office where he became a senior member of the company's East Coast team.[18]

While at Google, Kimball used a database known as Bigtable and followed the development of its next generation, known as Spanner.[1] The database organizes data between thousands of servers to allow Google applications to stay online, even if an entire data center were to go offline. Kimball wanted to use this software but found there was nothing available outside of Google as either closed or open-source software with similar capabilities.[1] He elicited the help of Mattis, along with ex-Google Reader team member Ben Darnell.[19] They formed the company Cockroach Labs to provide commercial backing for CockroachDB, an open source project he started on GitHub in February 2014.[1][20] Kimball serves as the company's chief executive officer and also contributes to the source code development of CockroachDB.[21][22]

Personal life

Spencer is named for his great-grandfather, LDS Church President Spencer W. Kimball.

References
  1. Finley, Klint (June 4, 2015). "Ex-Googlers Get Millions To Help You Build The Next Google". Wired. Retrieved July 25, 2015.
  2. Deek, Fadi P.; McHugh, James A. M. (2007). Open Source: Technology and Policy. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781139468732. Retrieved July 25, 2015.
  3. Sophy, Joshua (December 11, 2013). "Square Absorbs Viewfinder Team". Small Biz Trends. Retrieved July 25, 2015.
  4. Wallace, Shawn (2002). Perl Graphics Programming: Creating SVG, SWF (flash), JPEG and PNG files with Perl. O'Reily Media Inc. ISBN 9781449358310. Retrieved July 25, 2015.
  5. Beane, Zachary. "Spencer Kimball & Peter Mattis". GIMP Gazette. Retrieved July 25, 2015.
  6. Frauenheim, Ed (December 4, 2000). "Free Photoshop for the people". Salon.com. Retrieved August 28, 2006.
  7. Hackvän, Stig (January 1999). "Interview with Spencer Kimball and Peter Mattis". LinuxWorld. Archived from the original on April 17, 1999. Retrieved August 30, 2007.
  8. "Spencer Kimball profile". Crunchbase. Retrieved July 25, 2015.
  9. Cha, Ariana Eunjung (June 8, 2000). "Gnutella-Based Engine Finds Way to Internet". Washington Post. Retrieved July 25, 2015.
  10. Beato, G. (January 2003). "The Last Crash". `. SPIN Magazine. Retrieved July 25, 2015.
  11. Mook, Nate (April 12, 2000). "Open-Source Image Software Fuels Online Photo Lab". Beta News. Retrieved July 25, 2015.
  12. Cha, Ariana Eunjung (January 25, 2005). "At Google, Not Quite Partying Like It's 1999". The Washington Post. Retrieved August 13, 2015.
  13. Babcock, Charles (June 4, 2015). "CockroachDB: Ultimate In Database Survival". Information Week. Retrieved July 25, 2015.
  14. "OpenGSE Released". Retrieved January 27, 2009.
  15. Mlot, Stephanie (December 3, 2013). "Square Buys Photo-Sharing App Viewfinder". PC Mag. Retrieved July 25, 2015.
  16. Schmidt, Will (July 16, 2013). "Viewfinder Launches Today, Boasts Strong Communications, Privacy, and Personality". Tech Cocktail. Retrieved July 25, 2015.
  17. Novellino, Teresa (December 4, 2013). "Square doubles down on engineers with Viewfinder". Upstart Business Journals. Retrieved July 25, 2015.
  18. Perez, Sarah (December 3, 2013). "Square Acquires Ex-Googler Team Behind Viewfinder to Help Grow Its NYC Presence". TechCrunch. Retrieved July 25, 2015.
  19. Ewbank, Kay (June 9, 2015). "CockroachDB Released". I Programmer. Retrieved July 25, 2015.
  20. Finley, Klint (July 21, 2014). "Out in the Open: Ex-Googlers Building Cloud Software That's Almost Impossible to Take Down". Wired. Retrieved August 13, 2015.
  21. "Tech Executive Spencer Kimball". Venture Deal. Retrieved July 25, 2015.
  22. Ovide, Shira (June 4, 2015). "CockroachDB Scampers Off with $6.3 Million to Tackle Database Shortcomings". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved July 25, 2015.
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