Mark Lewis Fussell was born a Quaker in Philadelphia, and was educated in Hillside elementary, Westtown School, Shipley School, and Bryn Mawr college before heading to Caltech in Pasadena. He met his wife and life companion the first week of school. After barely surviving the grueling world of Caltech, Mark headed out into the world of work. This journey would include two startups in the LA area and eight in Silicon Valley, two children born in Silicon Valley, and a multi-month business trip to India with a newborn. Mark and his family now live in Palo Alto, California. They lease their house for five thousand a month, and somehow manage to make ends meet in spite of the huge amounts of cash flowing out. Mark is a professional software engineer. The certification does not formally exist, but Mark learned to program at twelve, delved into the science of computers while matriculating through Caltech, and has spent decades learning more and more, about more and more of the computer world. His productivity is so high coworkers describe him as traveling at 1000 miles an hour. Where others are in cars, on bikes, or walk. Mark was on a path to be a "famous" professional speaker, but then happily threw that away when he had a Y2K bug: his first born daughter. Mark stopped work completely for a year and a half to understand this amazing creation. He returned to work entering the first of the eight Silicon Valley startups, because a friend asked for help. After a decade perfecting his startup craft, and after eight startups in a row, Mark has significant ownership of worthless companies. Mark is now consulting. Most recently Mark helped Apple defeat four Samsung patents in 12-0830. Winning all four patents saved Apple maybe $100MM. Mark did not get a percentage, but was paid a nice hourly rate. He is very happy. Mark may go back into startups, but his family comes first.
