Microsoft's Brad Silverberg -- Leading Internet Charge

Over the past six years, nearly every time Microsoft has taken a leap to get ahead of its competition, Brad Silverberg has led the jump.

His first work on Windows helped close the company's gap with Apple. He built features into DOS 6.0 that wiped out entire sources of revenue for some companies. And last year, he led the release of Windows 95, now the best-selling piece of software ever.

It's no wonder, then, that Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates chose Silverberg, 41, to head up what some say is the biggest challenge Microsoft has ever faced: coming from behind in the race to commercialize the Internet.

Two weeks ago, Silverberg was named to head Microsoft's new Internet Platform and Tools Division, a 2,000-strong group charged with writing software to make the global computer network a better place to do things like shop, bank, watch video and search newspaper archives.

Silverberg is described as a "consummate product guy," a man who loves to test software, find bugs, fiddle with making programs easy to use - and pull all-nighters with his staff to get a job done on time.

People who have worked with him say he's well-suited to his new job - not really a visionary, but a master at carrying out ideas.

In his new job, he will be just two steps below Gates, reporting to Paul Maritz, a member of the five-person Office of the President. He and Gates meet often about work, exchange e-mail and socialize occasionally; Silverberg attended Gates' wedding two years ago and his 40th birthday party last year.

Silverberg's new job won't be easy. Microsoft has fallen behind competitors Netscape Communications and Sun Microsystems and doesn't have the built-in advantage it has making traditional desktop software, which almost always relies on Microsoft's Windows operating system.

But Silverberg, whose idea of relaxing is to ride a mountain bike down the side of the Haleakala volcano in Hawaii, is not known to shun competition. He is said to relish an in-house rivalry with Jim Allchin, whose division handles Microsoft's high-end Windows NT operating system, which competed internally with Silverberg's Windows 95 team for money and people.

During his off hours, Silverberg is just as competitive; a Cleveland native and fan of the Cleveland Indians baseball team, he mercilessly teased his Seattle friends last fall when the Indians beat the Mariners to advance to the World Series (although he says he's also an M's fan).

Rob Glaser, a former Microsoft vice president who now runs his own Internet start-up company called Progressive Networks, said Silverberg has what the fast-moving, highly competitive Internet market demands: an attitude.

"I don't want to say (it's a) street-fighter mentality, because that sounds too negative. But . . . his energy level is extremely well-suited for the Internet environment," Glaser said.

Silverberg, who guards his privacy but agreed to answer some questions through e-mail, is considered one of Microsoft's rising stars and was named last year's Person of the Year by PC Magazine. His six years with the company have made him a millionaire; he, his wife and two children live in a 3,000-square-foot home on a hill overlooking Lake Washington.

"I'm not a complacent guy; I don't sit on my laurels," Silverberg said.

As a manager, he expects the same from his employees.

"People who do good work and are capable of rising to the challenge, I think they're very excited about going to work for him" in the new division, said Phil Barrett, who worked for Silverberg on Windows 3.1 from 1990 to 1992. "People who want to slide . . . they might have a sense of trepidation."

Co-workers say Silverberg also has a good sense of humor. During the development of Windows 95, he and co-worker Dennis Adler relaxed by whizzing fastballs at each other in the hallway with Nerf footballs or tennis balls, Adler said.

Silverberg, the son of a doctor, was demanding even back in college, when the only demands he was placing were on himself. He received his bachelor's degree in computer science at Brown University in 1976 and his master's degree in 1977 at the University of Toronto, the alma mater of both his parents. He completed his master's degree in just 1 1/2 years, said Rick Hehner, a UT professor who supervised Silverberg's thesis, which suggested new ways programmers could structure their programs.

"He came knowing what he wanted to do, he knew how to do it, and he just did it," Hehner said. "Supervision was just superfluous in his case."

Hehner wanted Silverberg to stay for his doctorate. But he remembers Silverberg saying, "I think I hear California calling," meaning Silicon Valley, not sandy beaches and palm trees.

In Silicon Valley, Silverberg's success came fast. He started Analytica, a company that made one of the earliest databases to use graphical features such as pull-down menus, and sold it to software company Borland International.

While at Borland, Silverberg had his team's fancy new computers retrofitted to run like the slower, older ones sold in computer stores.

That way, Silverberg figured, his developers wouldn't lose sight of how well their software actually worked in the real world, said David Intersimone, who worked for Silverberg and now leads Borland's relationships with outside developers.

Silverberg was vice president of research and development at Borland when Gates hired him away in 1990 to work on Windows. Gates had spotted him while he still ran the start-up, but Borland got him before Gates could.

Silverberg helped build Borland into one of the largest software companies in the country. He raves about the people there and remembers spending lunch hours riding his bike "on some of the beautiful country roads and hills of Scotts Valley."

"It was a very difficult, emotional decision for me to leave Borland," Silverberg said, because he joined the company when it was only 3 years old and worked closely with Chairman Philippe Kahn, who is roughly Silverberg's age. But Silverberg had used an early "beta" version of Windows 3.0 (one not yet for sale) and "saw the possibilities for something big."

"I was also very impressed with Microsoft as a well-run, focused, forward-thinking company. Bill and I had known each other through the years as competitors . . . and had a healthy mutual respect for each other, as good competitors often do."

At the time, Silverberg said, moving to Microsoft was the most difficult decision he had ever made in his business life. In retrospect, though, it has "worked out extremely well."