Marc McDonald not only saw the birth of the software industry, he played a key role in it. The software developer was Microsoft’s first salaried employee, working alongside Bill Gates and Paul Allen to develop the file system for MS-DOS.
McDonald left Microsoft in 1984 because it got “too big,” but rejoined the Redmond company in 2000 when Microsoft bought the company where he was working, Design Intelligence.
Now, McDonald has a new gig, joining fast-growing display advertising company PaperG as a software architect. He will be based in the San Francisco company’s new engineering outpost in Kirkland.
“PaperG reminds me of one of the startups I most enjoyed working at, Design Intelligence where we worked on dynamic document templates that adjust to media and content,” said McDonald in a news release. “One of the exciting and intriguing aspects of PaperG is that the technology gathers content from the web, uses a set of design templates, and automatically builds and distributes a targeted ad campaign.”
In his new role, McDonald will work on crawl capabilities of the automation technology. PaperG, which established its Kirkland engineering center last year, and now employs about 25 people there, says that it can help advertisers build an online ad in less than 60 seconds.
McDonald was also pictured in the iconic early Microsoft team photo from 1978, seen above.
“We’re honored to have Marc on our team,” said PaperG CTO Victor Cheng. “He’s made huge contributions to the world of software engineering and we couldn’t be happier that he’s chosen to work with PaperG as we build our technology.”
