Peter L. S. Currie (born 1956) is an American business executive who was the chief financial officer for Netscape from 1995 to 1999.[1][2] Currie has been described by Wall Street Journal reporter Jessica Vascellaro as one of the "Silicon Valley wise men".[3] He was among the advisors to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg about business matters in 2009.[4] He is an investor in Internet start-ups and serves on the boards of numerous firms.[5] He is president of Currie Capital and was a charter trustee of Phillips Academy;[6] from July 2012 to June 2020, he served as the president of the school's board of trustees.[7][8][9]
Peter L. S. Currie | |
---|---|
Born | 1956 (age 67–68) |
Nationality | American |
Alma mater | Williams BA Econ/French Stanford MBA 1982 |
Occupation | Business executive |
Currie graduated from Phillips Academy in Andover in 1974[6] and earned a B.A. degree from Williams College in 1978 and an M.B.A. degree from Stanford University.[6] He worked in various capacities at Morgan Stanley including holding the title of Principal from 1982 to 1989.[6] He held various management positions at McCaw Cellular from 1989 to 1995 before joining Netscape.[6]
Netscape was a key player that "fueled the Internet revolution," according to a report in "The New York Times," and Currie was an executive vice president who worked under its CEO James L. Barksdale and founder Marc Andreessen.[10][11] Netscape developed the Secure Sockets Layer Protocol or SSL for securing online communication which is still widely used as well as JavaScript. Currie became its chief financial officer in 1995 [6] when the company went public.[12] He was Chief Administrative Officer at Netscape from July 1997 until March 1999.[6] In addition to financial management, Currie was responsible for human resources, information technology, facilities, and operations departments.[6]
Currie owned at least 37,500 shares of stock in Netscape which he sold in 1996, according to one report.[13] Netscape was valued at $5 billion in November 1995.[14] In 1999, Netscape was bought by America Online and became a holding company.[6]
Netscape was seen as the first Internet superstar which had a meteoric rise but the firm was undone by numerous forces including well-established software firms such as Microsoft. In a conference in 2005, Currie described how "hectic and crazy things were" during the tumultuous years in the mid 1990s.[15]
In 1999, Currie and Barksdale and others formed a venture capital firm called Barksdale Group to invest in business start-ups, and raised at least $180 million according to one report.[16] As an investor and consultant, he focused on the enterprise software sector of the business.[6] Currie invested in an Internet start-up called Flipboard in 2010.[5] Currie claims affiliations with Corsair Communications, Critical Path, Inkling, Listen.com, Kodak Imaging Network, Kontiki, IPVALUE Management, Oracle America, Tellme Networks, Zantaz, InfoSpace.com, Clearwire, CNET, Safeco, and Palamon Capital Partners.[6] He serves on the board of directors for oilfield services giant Schlumberger.[17][18] In 2016, Twitter released Currie from its board.[19]
Currie's advice was sought by Facebook co-founder and chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg in 2010.[3]
In a back-to-the-future move, former Netscape CFO Peter Currie will be the key adviser to Facebook about financial matters,