Thomas Reardon

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Thomas Reardon
TR35 (2003)
Scientific career
FieldsInformation technology
Computational neuroscience
InstitutionsColumbia University
Doctoral advisorThomas Jessell
Attila Losonczy

Thomas Reardon (born 1969) is an American

Facebook Reality Labs.[5]

Early life

Reardon is originally from New Hampshire, from an Irish-Catholic background. He is one of 18 siblings, eight of them adopted.[4] Described as a "math and computer prodigy," Reardon took graduate-level math and science classes at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology while in high school. He moved to North Carolina at age 16.[3][6]

Early tech career

While in North Carolina, Reardon co-founded a startup at age 19.[6] After the startup's acquisition, he met Bill Gates and joined Microsoft for 10 years as a program manager on the Windows 95 and Windows 98 projects.[3][7]

At one point, Reardon constituted Microsoft's entire Internet Explorer development team.

CSS in Internet Explorer 3 and came up with the idea of bundling Internet Explorer with the Microsoft Windows operating system.[7] IE3 was the first incarnation of Explorer to seriously compete with Netscape Navigator
, which until that point had been the most popular browser.

During Reardon's tenure, Internet Explorer surpassed Netscape Navigator as the most-used web browser in the late 1990s and early 2000s, in what came to be known as the

CSS, and XML, designing the first commercial implementations of these languages.[10][11]

In 1998, Microsoft became embroiled in

antitrust litigation, United States v. Microsoft Corp. as a result of the browser war with Netscape. Reardon expressed disillusionment with Microsoft after the Netscape ordeal, ultimately deciding to leave to start a wireless networking startup called Avogadro.[10]

Reardon later joined

Top 35 Innovators Under 35, an annually published list recognizing innovators for "accomplishments that are poised to have a dramatic impact on the world as we know it".[8]

Higher education

In 2004, Reardon went back to college, studying Classics at the Columbia University School of General Studies.[3][7] He credits a conversation with physicist Freeman Dyson for inspiring him to widen his worldview.[1]

In 2008, Reardon graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Columbia University with a B.A. in Literature and Classical Languages. By 2010, he had also earned an M.S. in Neurobiology from Duke University.[1][2]

In 2012 Reardon gave the

narrative fallacy: "There is a lot of pressure at events like these to connect the events in one's life with a smooth line. But rich lives, lived well, are actually quite non-linear." He again recounted the experience with Freeman Dyson, being encouraged to further explore his high school interest in Latin: "Oh, yes you must – read Tacitus."[4]

Reardon completed a Ph.D. in Neuroscience and Behavior from Columbia University in 2016.[1] He presently sits on the board of directors at Transportation Alternatives,[13] and on the board of visitors at the School of General Studies [14] and the Zuckerman Institute.[15]

CTRL-labs

The flagship device of CTRL-labs has been called an "API for the brain"[3] by TechCrunch and a "wristband to let human beings control machines with their minds" by CNBC.[16]

In February 2019, CTRL-labs announced raising $28 million in a Series B financing round from Google Ventures, Amazon’s Alexa Fund, Lux Capital, Spark Capital, Matrix Partners, Breyer Capital, and Fuel Capital.[17]

VentureBeat features a series of demos for CTRL-Labs' technology.[18][19]

In November 2019, CTRL-labs was acquired by Facebook in a deal reportedly between $500 million and $1 billion.[20][21] The team was integrated into Facebook's AR/VR research group.

Publications

  • Reardon, Thomas; Murray, Andrew; Turi, Gergely; Wirblick, Christopher; Croce, Katherine; Schnell, Matthias; Jessell, Thomas; Losonczy, Attila (17 February 2016). "Rabies Virus CVS-N2cΔG Strain Enhances Retrograde Synaptic Transfer and Neuronal Viability". Neuron. 89 (4): 711–724.
    PMID 26804990
    .

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f O’Sullivan, Anna (May 7, 2012). "Internet Explorer Creator to Speak at Columbia University Graduation". Columbia School of General Studies. Archived from the original on 2019-06-23. Retrieved 18 January 2015.
  2. ^ a b "Thomas Reardon". Department of Neuroscience at Columbia. Archived from the original on 25 August 2017. Retrieved 18 January 2015.
  3. ^ a b c d e "Thomas Reardon and CTRL-Labs are building an API for the brain". TechCrunch. November 2018. Retrieved 2019-03-09.
  4. ^ a b c Columbia (2012-05-29), 2012 School of General Studies Class Day Ceremony, retrieved 2019-03-09
  5. ^ Mack, Heather (27 September 2019). "Facebook Deal Suggests Path Forward for Brain-Computer Tech - WSJ". Wall Street Journal.
  6. ^ a b "Neural Interfaces and the Future of Human-Computer Interaction | Thomas Reardon". Hidden Forces. Retrieved 2019-04-06.
  7. ^ a b c d Mocarski, Michelle (April 20, 2012). "GS Class Day speaker swapped computers for classics". Columbia Spectator. Retrieved 18 January 2015.
  8. ^ a b "Thomas Reardon, 34". MIT Technology Review. Archived from the original on 25 February 2021. Retrieved 18 January 2015.
  9. ^ Silwa, Carol (July 29, 1996). "Microsoft and Netscape Take Battle to Distributed Object Front". Network World. No. 13, 31.
  10. ^ a b Costello, Sam (November 6, 2000). "Start-up CEO reveals little about company's big wireless dreams". Infoworld.
  11. ^ Ferranti, Marc (April 22, 1996). "Web group fights for HTML standard". Infoworld.
  12. ^ Morris, Anne (February 18, 2003). "Smartphones not such a smart move – Openwave CTO". Total Telecom. Retrieved 18 January 2015.
  13. ^ "Staff and Leadership".
  14. ^ "Board of Visitors". Columbia University School of General Studies. Retrieved July 22, 2020.
  15. ^ "The Brain Trust". 26 March 2019.
  16. ^ "CTRL-labs's armband lets humans control machines with their brains". www.cnbc.com. 14 July 2018. Retrieved 2019-03-09.
  17. ^ "Ctrl-labs raises $28 million from GV and Alexa Fund for neural interfaces". VentureBeat. 2019-02-22. Retrieved 2019-03-09.
  18. ^ VentureBeat (2018-12-05), Ctrl-Labs: Ctrl-Kit: Demo 1, retrieved 2019-03-09
  19. ^ VentureBeat (2018-12-05), Ctrl-Labs: Ctrl-Kit: Demo 2, retrieved 2019-03-09
  20. ^ Rodriguez, Salvador (2019-09-23). "Facebook agrees to acquire brain-computing start-up CTRL-labs". CNBC. Retrieved 2020-07-11.
  21. ISSN 0362-4331
    . Retrieved 2020-07-11.