Interviewed by Doug Fairbairn on 2025-02-04 in Mountain View, CA
© Computer History Museum
In this insightful interview, Bill Krause charts his unconventional path from an unfocused young man, candidly recalling his "four B’s" era, to a pioneering Silicon Valley CEO and dedicated philanthropist. He was born in Philadelphia to a military family in 1942. As he grew, his family moved to Japan, Germany and other locations. He described his early years as those of a “misspent youth” with no hobbies or other activities which might give an indication of his future success. He said his focus at the time was four “B’s”….baseball, basketball, beer, and broads!
He went to college at The Citadel, a military school in South Carolina, which he described as a “godsend”, because it taught him discipline, perseverance, and that in order to succeed in life you needed to have goals to aspire to. He decided to major in Electrical Engineering because the dean of the school recommended it because Bill was good in math and there weren’t many students in the department.
Upon graduation in 1983, he began his two years of military service. He describes the experience there as being fundamental to his future career success. As he entered the workforce, he had a very clear plan as to how to approach his career. He figured he had 45 years of work ahead, so he broke it into three phases: learning about business, building a business, and finally giving back in some form.
His first two first significant employers were General Electric and Hewlett-Packard, both of which served a fertile ground for learning the many dimensions of business from manufacturing to sales. In addition, his time at HP served to build a rich and extensive network of executives which would serve him well in the future.
In 1980, he was introduced to Bob Metcalfe, inventor of Ethernet, who was looking for a CEO to join him in founding a company to market this exciting new communications technology. Krause was very impressed with Bob and excited about the opportunity to embark on the second phase of his career plan, that of building a company. Krause and Metcalfe were extremely successful, taking the company public in 1984 and exceeding $400M in revenue by the time he stepped down as CEO in 1993.
Now it was time for the third phase of his career, which has lasted over 30 years. He and his wife decided to focus their philanthropy on education. They are the largest donors to the College of Education at Penn State and among the top three donors at The Citadel. At the latter, he has spearheaded the founding of the Krause Center for Leadership and Ethics. Krause has also served on the boards of 16 public companies and 20 private ones. He loves working with entrepreneurs and helping them build their businesses.
- Note: Transcripts represent what was said in the interview. However, to enhance meaning or add clarification, interviewees have the opportunity to modify this text afterward. This may result in discrepancies between the transcript and the video. Please refer to the transcript for further information – http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102809064
Visit computerhistory.org/collections/oralhistories/ for more information about the Computer History Museum’s Oral History Collection.
Collection number: 102809065
Acquisition number: 2025.0003
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