Nathan Myhrvold founded Intellectual Ventures after retiring from his position as chief strategist and CTO of Microsoft. Myhrvold is focused on business interests relating to the funding, creation and commercialization of inventions. During his 14-years at Microsoft, Nathan was responsible for founding Microsoft Research and numerous technology groups that resulted in many of Microsoft's most successful products. He has extensive experience successfully linking research to product development and commercialization. Nathan’s education includes math and physics at Cambridge, where he worked under Stephen Hawking in cosmology and quantum theory. His graduate work was done at Princeton — more math and physics with a dash of economics. Princeton awarded him the James Madison Medal, the university’s top alumni honor. He has more than 20 patents and 200 pending. He is an affiliate at the Museum of the Rockies, where he funds and participates in paleontological research expeditions. In 2000, he partnered with Paul Allen and pledged $1m to the SETI Foundation to fund the development of the world’s most powerful telescope. An avid nature and wildlife photographer, Myhrvold’s work is featured in the books “America 24/7” and “Washington 24/7.” His work has been published in journals including Science, Nature, Paleobiology, Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology and the Physical Review and he has contributed articles to magazines including Fortune, Time, National Geographic Traveler and the online magazine, Slate. In 2004, he provided the foreword to a book profiling some of the world’s greatest inventors – Juice: The Creative Fuel that Drives World-Class Inventors.
