People
The People Who Built It
Family, co-founders, investors, rivals and the St. Louis modem community. Each profile is labeled by evidence classification.
Companies are not built by founder mythology.
Savvis and Intira required founders, engineers, operators, executives, customers, investors, vendors, advisers and families willing to absorb uncertainty.
Built Before Cloud will not make one person enormous by making everyone else invisible.
The record also includes the Apple personnel who evaluated Savvis, the Gateway investors who financed it, the Savvis engineers who built and operated the network, the Intira engineers who built NetSourcing, the construction and engineering teams who made the data centers physical, and the customers willing to trust young companies with important infrastructure.
Every participant is invited to contribute records, offer an interview, correct a factual error, dispute an interpretation or add context.
A company may have founders.
A network always has a crew.
Timothy Munro Roberts
Founder and narrator
Peter Roberts
One half of the W(hack)o Cracko Brothers
Identical twin brother, co-sysop of Whackoland BBS
William Munro Roberts III
Monty
Tim's father — marketing, entertainment and motorsports executive; later an ordained Episcopal minister
Andrew Graves Gladney
Early financial partner, DiamondNet / Savvis
Dick Ford
Gateway Venture Partners
Bob Murphy
CFO, Savvis
Gary Zimmerman
Network builder, Savvis
David Zimmerman
Participant in the Savvis–Apple relationship
Marty Suzuki
Participant in the Savvis–Apple relationship
Sam Wood
Longtime friend; participant in the Savvis–Apple relationship
Sam Sanderson
Named in the historical record
Jack Rickard
Editor, Boardwatch Magazine
Bernie Schneider
Named in the historical record
Charlie Rallo
C. Rallo Construction — Intira data centers
The Ross & Baruzzini Engineering Team
Electrical and mechanical engineering — Intira data centers
Kevin Yarborough
Telecommunications-security professional
Abbie Hoffman
Countercultural figure connected to TAP's origins
Mark Ivie
Co-founder, Intira
Rich Skoba
Co-founder, Intira
Randy Tischler
Taran King
Co-founder of Metal Shop BBS and Phrack, St. Louis modem community
Craig Neidorf
Knight Lightning
Co-founder of Phrack, St. Louis modem community
Robert Osband
Cheshire Catalyst
Editor associated with the legacy of TAP