Jack Smith ( Hotmail ) - Wikipedia Jack Smith ( Hotmail ) Jack Smith c. 1968 ( age 49 -- 50 ) Occupation CEO of Proximex Known for co-founded Hotmail.com Jack Smith, along with Sabeer Bhatia, founded the first free web - based email service, Hotmail.com, in 1996. He has been the CEO of Proximex since 2007. Career Jack Smith worked at FirePower Systems Inc., a subsidiary of Canon Inc., where he designed integrated circuits for use in high performance PowerPC workstations, and invented and marketed the first web server accelerator card that boosted server performance significantly. Later on at Apple Computer, he worked on several of Apple 's early PowerBook computers. He has been the founder and president of EEE.com, building custom Internet web solutions. Smith came up with the idea for anonymous web - based email in 1995, and worked with Sabeer Bhatia, his colleague at Apple, to found the company. The company opened on July 4, 1996 with Smith as its Chief Technology Officer. In December 1997, Bhatia sold Hotmail to Microsoft for a reported $400 million. Smith went on to co-found Akamba Corporation and work as its CEO. He had also served as a Director of Engineering of Microsoft, first heading its Hotmail engineering division, and then leading a team developing next generation Internet software infrastructure. In 2007 he was named CEO of Proximex. References ^ Jump up to : Po Bronson ( 1999 ). `` What 's the Big Idea ? ''. Stanford Magazine. Jump up ^ http://www.proximex.com/sites/default/files/JackSmithCEO9.24.07.pdf ^ Jump up to : `` Proximex Namck Smith as CEO ''. Business Wire. September 24, 2007. Jump up ^ Brief bio available in the `` About '' section of the original HoTMaiL website ( archived 1997 ) Jump up ^ `` Hotmail turns three ''. Microsoft News Center. July 9, 1999. Jump up ^ Jeff Pelline ( January 3, 1998 ). `` Microsoft buys Hotmail ''. CNET News. Jump up ^ `` Executive Profile : Jack Smith '', Bloomberg Businessweek Further reading Bronson, Po, `` HotMale : Sabeer Bhatia started his company on $300,000 and sold it two years later for $400 million. So, is he lucky, or great ? '', Wired, Issue 6.12, December 1998 This biographical article relating to a computer specialist is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. Retrieved from `` https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jack_Smith_(Hotmail)&oldid=832678874 '' Categories : 1960s births Living people Businesspeople in information technology American technology chief executives American chief technologists American technology company founders Canon ( company ) people American inventors Computer specialist stubs Hidden categories : Articles with hCards Place of birth missing ( living people ) All stub articles Talk About Wikipedia فارسی Italiano Nederlands Português 中文 Edit links This page was last edited on 27 March 2018, at 11 : 34. About Wikipedia

Question: who founded the first free web based email service hotmail
Answer: Jack Smith