James H. Clark

James Henry Clark (born March 23, 1944) is an American entrepreneur and computer scientist. He founded several notable Silicon Valley technology companies, including Silicon Graphics, Netscape, myCFO, and Healtheon. His research work in computer graphics led to the development of systems for the fast rendering of three-dimensional computer images.

In 1998, Clark was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering for the development of computer graphics and for technical leadership in the computer industry.

Clark was born in Plainview, Texas, on March 23, 1944. He dropped out of high school at 16 and spent four years in the US Navy, where he was introduced to electronics. Clark began taking night courses at Tulane University's University College where, despite his lack of a high school diploma, he was able to earn enough credits to be admitted to the University of New Orleans. There, Clark earned his bachelor's and a master's degrees in physics, followed by a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Utah in 1974.

After completing his doctorate, Clark worked at the New York Institute of Technology's Computer Graphics Lab. He was fired from that position due to insubordination. He served as an assistant professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz (1974-1978) before moving to Stanford University as an associate professor of electrical engineering (1979-1982). Clark's research work concerned geometry pipelines, specialized software or hardware that accelerates the display of three dimensional images. The peak of his group's advancements was the Geometry Engine, an early hardware accelerator for rendering computer images based on geometric models which he developed in 1979 with his students at Stanford.

In 1982, Clark along with several Stanford graduate students founded Silicon Graphics (SGI). The earliest Silicon Graphics graphical workstations were mainly terminals, but they were soon followed by stand-alone graphical Unix workstations with very fast graphics rendering hardware. In the mid-1980s, Silicon Graphics began to use the MIPS CPU as the foundation of their newest workstations, replacing the Motorola 68000.

By 1991, Silicon Graphics had become the world leader in the production of Hollywood movie visual effects and 3-D imaging. Silicon Graphics focused on the high-end market where they could charge a premium for their special hardware and graphics software.

Clark had differences of opinion with Silicon Graphics management regarding the future direction of the company, and departed in late January 1994.

In February 1994, Clark sought out Marc Andreessen who had led the development of Mosaic, the first widely distributed and easy-to-use software for browsing the World Wide Web, while employed at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA). Clark and Andreessen founded Netscape, and developed the Netscape Navigator web browser. The founding of Netscape and its IPO in August 1995 launched the Internet boom on Wall Street during the mid-to-late 1990s. Clark's initial investment in Netscape was $4 million in 1994; he exited with $1.2 billion when Netscape was acquired by AOL in 1999.

Clark received the ACM SIGGRAPH Computer Graphics Achievement Award in 1984. In 1996, he received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement. He was a recipient of the 1997 Kilby International Awards, which honored him for his computer graphics vision and for enabling networked information exchange.

In 1988, Clark was an Award Recipient of the EY Entrepreneur of the Year Award in the Northern California Region.

Clark was awarded an honorary Doctor of Science (ScD) from the University of East Anglia in 1998.

Clark has been married four times and has four children. The divorce from his third wife of 15 years, Nancy Rutter, a Forbes journalist, is reported to have cost him $125 million in cash and assets in the settlement. Soon afterwards he began dating Australian model Kristy Hinze, 35 years his junior. Hinze became his fourth wife when they married in the British Virgin Islands on March 22, 2009. She gave birth to a daughter, Dylan Vivienne in September 2011, and later, Harper Hazelle, in August 2013. In 2000, his daughter by a previous marriage, Kathy, married Chad Hurley, a co-founder of YouTube, they were divorced in 2012.

In 2022 he made the largest residential real estate sale in Florida history, selling a 22-acre property in Manalapan, Florida to Larry Ellison for approximately $175 million. Clark had previously acquired the property in 2021 from the Ziff publishing family for $94 million.

Clark is an enthusiastic yachtsman but cannot sail in rough ocean races such as the Sydney-Hobart due to an arthritic condition in his ankles and prefers one-day regattas on the smoother waters of the Mediterranean, the Caribbean and off Newport, Rhode Island. In 2012, however, he commented that "after 28 years of owning boats, I'm over it."

He is the past owner of two important sailing yachts:

Hyperion, the world's largest sloop when she was launched in 1998 at 47.5 m (156 ft) in length. She was designed by Germán Frers and built by Royal Huisman. With an air draught of 59 m (194 ft), she briefly featured the world's longest carbon fiber spar. Clark developed her own chartplotter and SCADA system to control vessel operation remotely, as well as automate sailing operation and optimize sailing performance using a large bank of sensors and SGI processors. Clark sold Hyperion in 2004.

Comanche, a 30.48 m (100 ft) carbonfiber maxi yacht designed by VPLP and built by Hodgdon Shipbuilding for line honours victories in offshore races. She lost line honours to Wild Oats XI in the 2014 Sydney-Hobart race but returned and won in 2015. She also won line honours in the 2015 Transatlantic race in which she set a new 24-hour speed record for monohulls. In 2016 with Skipper Ken Read and Stan Honey navigating, she set the Newport to Bermuda Race record, shaving five hours off the previous fastest time recorded in the 635 mile race. In December 2017, Comanche was sold to Australian Jim Cooney.

He remains the current owner of two other large sailing yachts:

Clark is a pilot who enjoys flying helicopters, gliders (built in Germany) and acrobatic aircraft (such as the Extra EA-300).

Clark has contributed to Stanford University, where he was an associate electrical engineering professor. In 1999, he pledged $150 million toward construction of the James H. Clark Center for Biomedical Engineering and related programs for interdisciplinary biomedical research. At the time, it was the largest-ever contribution to Stanford, other than the university's founding grant. Construction started in 2001 and was completed in the summer of 2003, as part of Stanford's Bio-X program. In September 2001, Clark rescinded $60 million of his initial pledge, citing anger over President Bush's restrictions on stem cell research. In a New York Times opinion piece, Clark said federal funding is essential for research in the United States, and he was not interested in funding research that could be suppressed for political reasons. President Barack Obama lifted the restrictions in question in 2009. In 2013, Clark pledged an additional $60 million to Stanford for interdisciplinary research in the life sciences, technology, and engineering. His commitment was finally completely fulfilled in 2020. Clark has donated an additional $10 million to fund fellowships at the Stanford Institute for Theoretical Physics.

In 2004, Clark and David Filo of Yahoo! each donated $30 million to Tulane University's School of Engineering for merit-based scholarships to provide education to deserving students regardless of financial situation in the discipline of engineering.

Clark is a board member for the national council of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and contributes towards the organization. The Perlman Music Program has recognized Clark for his continued philanthropic efforts towards their organization and their endowment fund.