Heads above the rest

When it comes to character, few people in IT have real charisma.

A compelling vision, an ability to rally people behind you, the ruthlessness to make it all come true ... finding them all in one person is rare.

Bill may be bold and brilliant, Larry may have the drive and Steve the 'vision thing' - in spades. But the ability to get to the top of the heap is not something people are born with. In any case, the people at the top of this huge industry are by now on their way to becoming icons, like Che Guevara or Madonna, but far less photogenic.

What we have in reality are business leaders who are human beings with their own strengths and weaknesses. Some have risen inexorably to a leadership position through outstanding ability, others almost by chance - and some are individuals first and leaders second.

Here are the industry's most important business leaders, ranging from the charismatic to the ordinary, and from ruthless boss to mild-mannered manager. Something of each of them exists in each and every IT department - so watch out!

JIM CLARK

A 100 years or so ago, would-be hustlers sold snake oil or turned their hand to trading beads for guns out on the frontier. Today, Texan Jim Clark is hailed as one of a new breed - the serial entrepreneur.

Clark is credited with having started not one, but two billion-dollar technology companies - workstation manufacturer Silicon Graphics (SGI) and web pioneer Netscape Communications.

His latest venture - a kind of web-based BUPA called Healtheon Corporation - may also join the billion-dollar club.

Far from being run out of town, at 56 Clark has all the trappings of success: a picture collection reputed to include works by Picasso, Monet and Renoir, two ex-wives and a $50 million yacht.

More than anything, Clark seems to be an opportunist who gets behind an idea at the right time.

'Jim has an impressive ability to distil opportunity out of technological change,' says Marc Hannah, co-founder of SGI.

The particular genius of the serial entrepreneur, of course, is being able to do this over and over again. If you're on to a winner, stick with it. Momentum, Clark has said, was central to the early success of Netscape: 'If everyone thinks you're going to be the winner, everyone wants to join - there's a psychology associated with it.'

That is a psychology the fleet-footed, easily-bored serial entrepreneur understands instinctively. Create success, then move on. Leave colleagues, the companies you helped create in your wake? Sure. There's always another town, another snake-oil recipe.

ESTHER DYSON

Known as the 'Queen of the Net-erati', Dyson is founder and chief executive of EDventure Holdings, an information services company specialising in emerging technology. Originally a securities analyst on Wall Street, Dyson turned venture capitalist and has backed many of the Net's winners. She made Fortune's list of 50 top businesswomen last year, and was named 'The most powerful woman in IT' by a US poll in Upside magazine. Too sensible to be dismissed as uncannily lucky, She is a bulwark of common sense and sound values. But, instead of gazing into space, she holds forth about the web and its impact on society and business. And, boy, does she hold forth. 'The Internet will not mean the death of human customer service.' she declares. 'It just changes the medium through which it is carried out.' Ultimately, it is the quality of people and service that is going to make ecommerce work, not grey matter and high-tech equipment.' She may feel the occasional need to be alone, but she says email is her life-blood. 'I currently have more than 1,000 emails in my in-box,' she says.

In fact Dyson spends so much of her time on the phone and email at work that she's cut the cables off at home, where she prefers to be incommunicado.

Everyone hangs on her words: US financial service providers Security First Network Bank and Toronto Dominion Bank have put her theories into practice with significant success. Innocent techno-virgins and hardened cyber-geeks alike bend ears for her almost spooky foresight.

LOU GERSTNER

Lou Gerstner knows all about offers you can't refuse. Now one of the industry's godfathers himself, IBM's chief executive was only persuaded to join the company when the recruiters made him the one offer he could not turn down: they begged him to take the job for the good of the nation.

Appealing to his sense of status and destiny was shrewd. He is now known as the man who brought IBM back from the dead. A consummate strategic-thinker, he has said: 'Once you've set a strategy, never, ever, violate it.'

Reviled as much as he's respected, many of his peers think he's an imperious know-it-all.

One chief executive said: 'He's done a hell of a job, but he just goes out of his way to be pompous. I'd never hire him, even though I think he's very capable.'

After a radical overhaul, Big Blue is back to where it belongs as the safe corporate purchase. Gerstner re-positioned IBM as an upright New York State business, free of the flaky tendencies of its Silicon Valley rivals.

And who knows the score better than Gerstner when it comes to the swagger of corporate life? Like Brooke's Brother shirts and Ivy League schools, he is US establishment to the max. After completing a Harvard MBA, he received his fine-tuning at McKinsey's.

Gerstner was an executive vice president at Amex in 1977, aged 35. By 1989, he was running food and tobacco giant RJR Nabisco. If big business is the new empire, then Gerstner was well on his way to being an emperor.

Jim Johnston, who worked with Gerstner at Nabisco, commented: 'There's an element about Lou I don't get, given how talented he is. He is incredibly concerned about stature, particularly his own.'

Maybe this harks back to Gerstner's humble, blue-collar roots. Scaling the heights of power armed only with talent and ambition could easily reinforce a sense of superiority, even a feeling of being ordained by destiny. Just don't get in his way.

HERMANN HAUSER

Just when you think he has gone down quietly, Hermann Hauser is liable to pop up and cause an explosive outburst, sometimes literally. The man who bred the UK's biggest computer success of the 1980s - the BBC Micro - has been known to pepper speaking engagements by letting off small incendiary devices.

An overwhelming need for attention is usually associated with hyperactive children, but at the age of 53, Hauser is still making sure we can't ignore him.

Hauser has certainly had more ups and downs in the playground of high-tech business than most. He was ranked as the 12th richest man in the world in 1984, after Acorn went public, only to see the value of his holding plummet by $100 million the next year when the company crash-landed.

'Hermann is a charismatic leader and he's technical,' says Brian O'Riordan, who worked with Hauser in the 1980s as ICL's chief scientist.

'But, I wouldn't say he's a great manager,' he adds.

Hauser now spends most of his time backing new technology businesses, having found his niche as a venture capitalist rather than a business manager. A veteran of around 25 start-ups himself, he might think he knows it all, but people who have worked with him are quick to confirm his readiness to back someone with a bright idea.

He has become hugely influential in developing Silicon Fen - the high-tech cluster of companies and colleges around Cambridge. For this alone, most admire his energy and enthusiasm, and forgive his impatience and impetuosity.

'Hermann wants the future here more quickly than it wants to arrive', says one colleague.

'He's like a slightly out-of-control child. You're amused at what he does, but you thank God that he's not one of yours.'

JEFF BEZOS

Prophet of ebusiness, Jeff Bezos has carried his faith to new lands with a good book in his hand. Bezos founded the online bookstore, Amazon.com, in 1994.

Rule 1: Be rich, already

At 25, Bezos was the youngest ever vice president of Bankers Trust.

But, he says, he wanted something more from life (maybe his current $2 billion personal fortune).

Rule 2: Go west, young man

But only as far as Seattle. Bezos saw the Promised Land, and built a web site instead of a storefront to discount book prices by up to 40%.

Rule 3: Fear not

Do not fear Wall Street, or even the competition. The only people Bezos wants the company to fear are the customers. 'Those are the people who give us money everyday, and those are the people whom we have to be paranoid about,' he says.

Rule 4: Be not a prophet

Don't even mention profits - leave that to the analysts on Wall Street.

Bezos is focused on growing market share: 18 months ago, Amazon was 50 times smaller than Barnes and Noble - the US's largest bookstore business.

Today it is only three times smaller.

Rule 5: Make thine enemy a footstool beneath thy feet

Quick and efficient distribution is key to the Amazon strategy. When Barnes and Noble acquired major US book distributor Ingram, Bezos reacted quickly.

Rule 6: Turn the other cheek

When attacked, Bezos sees no need to retaliate. Amazon recently had to admit that it accepts cash for endorsing books. Bezos nonchalantly dismisses the idea that the payments have any bearing on the ratings given by his book reviewers.

Rule 7: Spread the word

'Our model is work hard, have fun, make history,' says Bezos. 'We're trying to invent the future of ecommerce.'

DAVID POTTER

Like a brainy visitor from another planet, David Potter - South-African-born managing director of Psion - touched down in England in the mid-70s. He did all kinds of part-time jobs to pay his way through college.

Everything from driving trucks to selling encyclopedias. 'I sold ice-creams in Hyde Park, and was knee-capped by Italians. Well almost,' he once claimed. That close call has clearly stood him in good stead - so far, the one thing that has not happened to his company is to be muscled out of business. Psion has had its share of ups and downs since Potter, with his extra-terrestrial vision, set it up using money from investments made betting against bear stock markets in the late 1970s. Potter stunned academic colleagues in 1980 by giving up his tenured teaching post to start his own company. Then, in the mid-80s, he stunned everyone else by taking Psion into palm-top organisers when mere earthlings were using filofaxes. With everyone finally waking up to the reality that the PC is about to be overtaken by a legion of smaller devices of the kind Potter has pioneered, he will need all his experience of fighting off the bully boys to keep Psion's star rising.