Peter Norton Part I: The Man Behind Norton Utilities

"What advice would you give to people with ideas?"
"I don't think people with ideas should be given any advice at all."
--from our interview with Peter Norton

How do you make $100 million in seven years as an inventor?

Well, if you're Peter Norton you go through public schools as "a loner," attend (and drop out of) a small college in the Pacific Northwest known for "brilliant and unstable" students; get drafted and spend two years teaching combat first aid; spend five years in a Buddhist monastery in Northern California; bounce from job to job in computers; return to college and get your degree; and work for Cal Tech's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Then, when you're pushing forty, you plunk your life savings into a companyto sell some computer programs you invented while fiddling with the first IBM personal computer.

And that's all there is to it.

Oh, we forgot to mention: You ought to study calligraphy as much as possible.

Excerpted from
The Great American Idea Book: How to Make Money from Your Ideas for Movies, Music, Books, Inventions, Businesses and Almost Anything Else!
Authors: Bob Coleman & Deborah Neville
Publisher: WW Norton
Copyright: 1993,1995
All Rights Reserved