Vision Better living through mathematics: Akamai's egghead algorithms and globe-spanning server network deliver Web site content like a sledgehammer kills a fly. At the literal level, the FreeFlow service promises improved content distribution for online publishers. Between the lines, it's a plan to privatize the Web.
Headquarters: Cambridge, Massachusetts
Founded: September 1998
Employees: 130
Key Investors: Baker Communications Fund, Battery Ventures, Polaris Venture Partners, TCW Group Investment to date: $43 million
Product Launch: FreeFlow, April 1999
Major competitor: Sandpiper Networks, Westlake Village, California
Since its launch in September 1998, this adaptive content distribution service has attracted high-traffic Web sites like Intuit and E! Online. Deals with AOL and Inktomi have helped multiply the size of its network by a factor of 20. Recently, a $21.5 million second round of financing brought in investment from Hambrecht & Quist, Times Mirror, and BancBoston Robertson Stephens. Akamai's system may be smarter, but its first product release is seven months behind. Place your bets.
Tom Leighton
Chief Scientist
Cofounder
Leighton, a professor of applied mathematics at MIT, literally wrote the book in his field, the graduate-level text Introduction to Parallel Algorithms and Architectures. He holds eight patents, has authored more than 100 research papers, and worked as editor in chief of the Journal of the ACM. He's also a source of personal inspiration among MIT students and faculty - seen as a noble figure and an exceptionally nice guy.
Danny Lewin
Chief Technology Officer
Cofounder
After his active service in the Israel Defense Forces, Lewin earned two undergraduate degrees simultaneously at Technion, aka the Israel Institute of Technology, before working for IBM in Haifa and enrolling at MIT. At Akamai, Lewin developed the key algorithms underlying the FreeFlow technology.
George Conrades
Chair and Chief Executive Officer
Joined Akamai: April 1999
After a 31-year career at IBM, Conrades joined BBN to turn one of the Internet's original research centers into one of its largest service providers. GTE bought BBN in 1997, after which Conrades headed its Internetworking division. Then he skipped over to become a venture partner at Polaris, and through this association became Akamai's CEO.
Paul Sagan
President and Chief Operating Officer
Joined Akamai: January 1999
Sagan was president of Time Inc. New Media from 1991 to 1996 and spent a year afterward in Geneva, at the World Economic Forum, before learning about Akamai. At Time Inc. New Media, he launched NY 1 News, the regional cable network that broke ground by sending its reporters out with camcorders. He also helped launch the cable modem service Road Runner and the mega Web site Pathfinder. His penchant for applying new technologies to old media may come from his newsman father, who created a shared story pool "network" for several suburban Chicago papers by using specially equipped typewriters, early Rockwell OCR machines, and a station wagon.
