This page lists notable alumni and students of the University of California, Berkeley. Alumni who served as faculty are listed in bold font, with degree and year.
Notable faculty members are in the article List of UC Berkeley faculty.
Founders and co-founders Tom Anderson, B.A. 1998 – co-founder of social networking website MySpace (acquired by News Corporation for $580 million) Brian Behlendorf – co-founder of the Apache Software Foundation, Mozilla Foundation board member, co-founder and CTO of CollabNet Joan Blades, B.A. 1977 – co-founder of software company Berkeley Systems (acquired by Sierra Online for $13 million), co-founder of political activist group MoveOn.org Richard C. Blum, B.S. 1958, M.B.A. 1959 – founder of private equity firm Blum Capital and the American Himalayan Foundation, regent of the University of California Richard Bolt, B.A. 1933, M.A. 1937, PhD 1939 – co-founder of ARPANET developer Bolt, Beranek and Newman (BBN) Eric Brewer, B.S. EECS 1989 – co-founder of web search engine company Inktomi (acquired by Yahoo! for $235 million), director of Intel Labs Berkeley; lead researcher at Google Gary Chevsky, attended for undergraduate degree"In the summer of '92, Gruener hired Gary Chevsky, a Berkeley computer science undergrad, to help write a program and develop prototypes for his question-and-answer search concept." 1990–1994 – co-founder and chief architect of web search engine company Ask Jeeves (known now as Ask.com, and acquired by InterActive Corp for $1.9 billion), senior VP at Symantec and YouSendIt Frederick Gardner Cottrell, B.S. Chemistry, 1896 – founder of patent holding company Research Corporation (which held the rights to the patent for Ernest O. Lawrence's cyclotron); inventor of the electrostatic precipitator, which removes pollution from factory exhaust fumes; inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1992 E. Morris Cox, B.S. 1924 – cofounder of Dodge & Cox investment management firm Toby Crabel – founded Crabel Fund Ltd and Crabel Fund LP , hedge fund manager and tennis player. Ed Crane, B.S. 1967 – founder of the Cato Institute David Culler, B.A. 1980 – chair of the Department of Computer Science at UC Berkeley, associate chair of the Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences (UC Berkeley), and associate CIO of the College of Engineering (UC Berkeley); co-founder of smart grid monitoring company Arch Rock (acquired by Cisco Systems) Weili Dai, B.A. Computer Science 1984 – co-founder (with Sehat Sutardja MS 1983, PhD 1988 EECS and Pantas Sutardjai MS 1983, PhD 1988) of NASDAQ-100 broadband technology company Marvell Technology Group; namesake of Sutardja-Dai Hall on the UC Berkeley campus Lee Felsenstein, B.S. EECS 1972 – founder of Community Memory, designer of Osborne 1 computer, mediator of Homebrew Computer Club, from which would emerge 23 companies, including Apple Inc. Charles H. Ferguson, B.A. 1978 – co-founder of Vermeer Technologies Incorporated (acquired by Microsoft for $133 million), founder and president of Representational Pictures, winner of an Academy Award for Best Documentary for Inside Job (2010), Academy Award nomination for the documentary film No End in Sight (2007), former fellow at the Brookings Institution, lifelong member of the Council on Foreign Relations (also listed in "Academy Awards" section) Donald Fisher, B.S. 1951 – founder and former CEO of NYSE-listed S&P 500 clothing retailer The Gap, the largest apparel retailer in the United States Rob Fulop, B.S. CS 1980 – co-founder of video game companies Imagic and PF.Magic (creator of first virtual pets such as Dogz), Atari engineer, developed Missile Command and Night Driver Jean Paul Getty (attended and transferred to the University of Oxford) – founder of the Getty Oil Company Steve Gibson (attended) – founder of software security company Gibson Research Corporation and co-host of Security Now! Edward Ginzton, B.S. 1936, M.S. 1937 – researcher in klystron tubes, co-founder of Varian Associates (which later split into three companies: NYSE-listed Varian Medical Systems; Varian Semiconductor, acquired by Applied Materials for $4.9 billion; and Varian, Inc., acquired for 1.5 billion by Agilent Technologies) Diane Greene, M.S. CS 1988. – co-founder (with Mendel Rosenblum M.S. 1989, PhD 1992 and Edward Wang BS EECS 1983, MS 1988, PhD 1994) of NYSE-listed company VMWare Garrett Gruener, M.A. Political Science 1977"Gruener, who had both a UCSD bachelor's and master's (UC-Berkeley, '77) in political science with an emphasis on technology, had started two businesses by the early '80s." – co-founder of web search engine company Ask Jeeves (known now as Ask.com, and acquired by InterActive Corp for $1.9 billion) Ashraf Habibullah, S.E., M.S. 1970 – co-creator of the first computer-based structural-engineering applications and founder, President, and CEO of the structural-engineering software company Computers and Structures, Inc. John Hanke, M.B.A. 1996 – founder and CEO of Keyhole, Inc. (acquired by Google, renamed to Google Earth); founder of video game company Niantic (which created Pokémon Go) William Harlan, B.A. 1963 – founder of Harlan Estate, Bond, the Napa Valley Reserve, a cult wine Cabernet Sauvignon producer William Haseltine, B.A. 1966 – founder of Cambridge BioSciences and Dendreon Corp. F. Warren Hellman, B.A. 1955 – founder of Hellman & Friedman and Matrix Partners, former chairman, head of Investment Banking Division at Lehman Brothers; founder of the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival, founder of The Bay Citizen (which later merged with the Center for Investigative Reporting) Larry Hillblom, J.D. – co-founder of DHL Mike Homer, B.S. 1981 – co-founder and former CEO of networking company Kontiki (acquired by VeriSign for $62 million) David T. Hon B.S. 1964 – physicist and founder of Dahon folding bicycles Chenming Hu, M.S. EE, PhD EE – Distinguished Professor of Microelectronics at UC Berkeley, co-founder and chairman of Celestry Design Technologies (acquired by Cadence Design Systems for over $100 million); recipient of the Phil Kaufman Award; co-inventor of the 3D transistor (the FinFET) Kai Huang, B.A. 1994 – co-founder (with Charles Huang BA 1992) and president of video game company RedOctane (publisher of Guitar Hero and acquired by Activision for $99.9 million) Jess S. Jackson, J.D. 1974 – founder of Kendall Jackson Wine Estates Bill Joy, M.S. 1982 – co-founder of computer software and hardware manufacturer Sun Microsystems (acquired by Oracle Corporation for $7.4 billion) Gene Kan, B.S. 1997 – founder of distributed search engine InfraSearch (acquired by Sun Microsystems for $12 million) Victor Koo, co-founder of Chinese video website Youku, whose American depositary shares were listed on the NYSE in 2010 and which was acquired by Alibaba in 2016 for $5.4 billion; formerly president of Chinese internet company Sohu Anthony Levandowski, B.S. Industrial Engineering 2002, M.S. IEOR 2003 – co-founder (with Andrew Schultz MS 2006 and Pierre-Yves Droz MS) of the secretive robotics hardware company 510 Systems, which developed the technologies for Google Street View and Google Car, and was acquired by Google) David R. Liu, PhD 1999 – co-founder of Editas Medicine Daniel S. Loeb, attended – founder of hedge fund Third Point Management Thomas J. Long, B.S. 1932 – founder of pharmaceutical retailer Longs Drugs (acquired by CVS Caremark for $2.54 billion) Samuel Madden, PhD – co-founder of Vertica Systems (acquired by Hewlett-Packard for $350 million, 2005 Technology Review Top 35 Brian Maxwell, B.A. 1975 – co-founder (with Jennifer Maxwell, BS 1988) of energy bar food company PowerBar (acquired by Nestlé for $375 million); namesake of the Maxwell Family Field on the UC Berkeley campus Nick McKeown, MS 1992, PhD 1995 – co-founder and former CTO of Abrizio (acquired by PMC-Sierra for $400 million), co-founder and former CEO of Nemo Systems (acquired by Cisco Systems for $12.5 million), co-founder of software-defined networking company Nicira Networks (acquired by VMWare for $1.26 billion); Kleiner Perkins Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University Paul Merage, B.S. Business 1966, MBA 1968 – co-founder and former CEO of Hot Pockets frozen food company Chef America Inc. (acquired by Nestlé for $2.6 billion) Alan Miller, B.S. EECS 1973 – co-founder of first independent video game publisher Activision (known now as the NASDAQ-100 video game company Activision Blizzard), co-founder and former CEO of video game company Accolade (acquired by Infogrames for $60 million"Infogrames is focusing sharply on North America, following the $60 million acquisition in April of San Jose, California-based videogame publisher Accolade." ) Gordon Moore, B.S. 1950 – co-founder of NASDAQ-100 company Intel, originator of Moore's Law Lowell North, B.S .1951 – gold medalist at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City,"…[Terry Kohler] hopes that the gift not only will help MIT but also will honor Lowell North. North — who along with Peter Barrett won a gold medal in the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City — in 1957 founded North Sails, a company that produced sailing equipment… North Sails — which designs and manufactures high-tech sails, sail cloth, and masts for sailing vessels — has long been the world's leading sailmaker." founder of North Sails ("the world's leading sailmaker""… North Sails has evolved into the world's major sail designer and manufacturer, with 25 lofts, as outlets are called in the sailing industry, and 10 service lofts in maritime areas from Sydney, Australia, to the shores of Connecticut. The company's sales last year topped $30 million…") Pierre Omidyar, attended to complete his undergraduate degree in computer science"After one more semester at Tufts, Omidyar moved out West for good, finishing up his undergraduate degree at the University of California – Berkeley." – founder of NASDAQ-100 web auction site eBay Kim Polese, B.S. 1984 (biophysics) – CEO of software company SpikeSource; original product manager of the Java at Sun Microsystems; co-founder and former CEO of software company Marimba (acquired by BMC Software for $239 million) Lars Rasmussen, PhD 1992 – co-founder of Where 2 Technologies (which was acquired by Google and renamed to Google Maps); co-founder of Google Wave; researcher at Facebook Warren Robinett, M.S. C.S. 1976 – originator of Easter eggs, co-founder of edutainment software company The Learning Company (acquired by Mattel for $3.8 billion) Andrew Rudd, MS 1972, MBA 1976, PhD 1978 – co-founder (with UC Berkeley professor Barr Rosenberg) and chairman and CEO of Barra Inc. (acquired by Morgan Stanley for $816.4 million and known as MSCI) John Schaeffer, 1971 – founder of NASDAQ-listed solar energy retailer Real Goods and the Solar Living Center Sally Schmitt, BS 1952 – founder of The French Laundry Jim Simons, PhD 1972 – founder of $84 billion hedge fund Renaissance Technologies; mathematician; philanthropist Nat Simons, B.S 1989, M.S. 1994 – founder of investment management firm Meritage Group ($12.3 billion AUM); founder of Prelude Ventures; businessman; philanthropist Charles Simonyi, B.S. 1972 – founder of Intentional Software; former head of Microsoft's flagship Office applications; fifth space tourist; at Xerox PARC he created the first WYSIWYG word processor, Bravo; joined Microsoft to spread the WYSIWYG and computer mouse gospel; originally from Hungary, he is the "Hungarian" in Hungarian notation, which he created Barclay Simpson, B.S. – founder of Simpson Manufacturing Company (NYSE: SSD) and one of the top benefactors of his alma mater ($50 million)* James Solomon, B.S. EE, M.S. EE – founder of electronic design automation company SDA Systems (became NASDAQ-listed Cadence Design Systems); recipient of the Phil Kaufman Award, the "Nobel Prize" of the electronic design industry"