Abbey Silverstone

Abbey Silverstone is a very early member of the computer development family with a 50 year career in the computer industry that included the founding, with Dr. Jim H Clark, of Silicon Graphics, Inc. (SGI).

Silverstone has a BS in Industrial Administration from the University of Illinois where, as a student, he worked with the IBM 650 in the registration and grading process. After a successful athletic fencing career which included 3 years as an All-American and representation of Canada internationally, he relocated to California. In 1973 while at Xerox Corp. he played an important role in the development of, and production of, the first corporate networked office. This Xerox (PARC) developed network included the first personal computers ( [Xerox Alto|Alto] ), the first high speed monochrome laser printers (Dover), the first color laser printer (Pimlico) and the first Ethernet-based corporate-wide electronic network. In 1977 a complete network modeled on the Xerox network was installed in President Jimmy Carter’s White House.

In 1981 Mr. Silverstone provided Xerox with the packaging design for the first commercial workstation the Xerox Star 8010. In 1982 Dr. Jim Clark and Mr. Silverstone, along with some graduate students from Stanford University founded Silicon Graphics Inc. (SGI). Mr. Silverstone provided and managed the Operations Division until 1988 when he began a consulting career. In 2000 he assumed the CEO role with Multacom, a trans-pacific telecommunications company which connected Mainland China, the USA and Taiwan.

He has served on several boards in the USA and China. While maintaining his interest in technology he is now a semi-retired advisor to newly-formed companies.