Mini Biography
Born on August 9, 1968, Kurt grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He was mostly raised
by his mother, an immigrant from Romania, after his father left when he was very young.
Kurt's early life could
be described as "hardscrabble" and "modest" but apparently those terms and many others
like them are
reserved for policitians
who went to prep school and received Corvette convertibles for wedding gifts. Yes
that's you, Joe Biden.
Mr. Koller began his career in computer networking at the age of 13 by
befriending and learning from "hackers" belonging to the infamous Milwaukee
hacking group, the 414s. He attended various public and private elementary,
junior high, and high schoolss, before finally dropping out in his sophmore
year of high school. He left home and moved to the Twin Cities, MN in 1985 to
enjoy the burgeoning Minneapolis live music scene and to put himself through
the remainder of high school.
He ran a multi-line BBS on software that he developed, then moved on to the
internet through various "hacked" Minneapolis-area accounts. (At that time the
only way to get on the 'net was to be a scientist, in college, or join the military. Nonoe of those was an option.)
Then, in 1991, after five years of who knows what, Kurt moved to Denver. It was here that Kurt honed
his networking skills by participating in a public access experiment called "Nyx
," run by professor Andrew Burt at the University of Denver.
After a few years in Colorado mountain biking and playing with computers, Kurt
transferred to the University of Delaware, being attracted by the university's
advanced network and female/male student ratio. Guided by a belief that the
internet would be a valuable tool
for every office desktop and for every home (this was 1993), he devoted his
energies both in and out of the classroom to learn as much as possible about
the entire internetworking picture on many different platforms. It was here
that the original Sarcasm Network was born, which was originally a combination
school policy commentary and gopher/www site for the band Ween.
Kurt stayed on at the University of Delaware and
helped build the school's World Wide Web site. He also began doing freelance
work for small companies in New York City, such as Xworld, now named Flightpath
.
Kurt’s foresight and vision regarding the internet, and his realization that
Delaware wasn't going to have much to offer, led him to take a freelance
position at MTV, building their website after the Adam Curry fiasco. A year
later, after a meeting in which the VP of New Business proclaimed that he was
going to revolutionize the industry by charging ISPs to allow ISP customers
access to the site (the cable TV model), Kurt began searching for a new
position with an organization that had more clue.
Yada yada yada, and many years, consulting gigs, two dot com companies, and various positions later, Kurt now runs a company called Minimalist.
Kurt has a wife and son and likes to keep his private life private, even though it may not seem that way.
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