There's Method Behind Zach Nelson's Madness - Page 3

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Long-time friend Paul Greenberg, president of analyst firm The 56 Group, describes Nelson as "unpretentious and a genuinely good human being," while analyst Denis Pombriant, who has known Nelson for about five years, describes him as "amazingly kind and sensitive" because Nelson related well to Pombriant's wife's job of teaching people with special needs.

Loving every second

But shaping the future is what Nelson does best. From Cunningham, where he marketed the Motorola 68000 chip during the RISC wars, he went to Sun, where he marketed Solaris, "the next layer of the stack," he said. Then he moved to Oracle, then to McAfee, where he created McAfee.com, which he describes as "the first SaaS solution ever," in 1999, and then headed up MyCIO.com.

Nelson loves his job. No, really. "When I was working at Oracle, I was pulling out of the office one day and had this thought -- Larry [Ellison] had just made a billion dollars; why did he continue working when he didn't have to?" Now he knows. "When you find the job you're made for, you don't consider it work," he said.

"People ask me what I do when I'm off, and I say I work. It's like a giant puzzle, the pain is the next problem you have to solve and you know you can solve it."