Avie Tevanian | |
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| Born | Avadis Tevanian 1961 (age 63–64) |
| Education | PhD, MS, BA |
| Alma mater | University of Rochester (BS) Carnegie Mellon University (MS,PhD) |
| Employers |
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| Known for | Computer scientist and coarchitect ofMach kernel,NeXTSTEP, andmacOS |
Avadis "Avie"Tevanian, Jr. (born 1961) is anAmericansoftware engineer and former senior vice president of software engineering atApple from 1997 to 2003, before serving as chief software technology officer from 2003 to 2006.[1] There, he redesignedNeXTSTEP to become macOS. Apple's macOS andiOS both incorporate the Mach Kernel, andiPadOS,watchOS, andtvOS are all derived from iOS. He was a longtime friend ofSteve Jobs.[2] AtCarnegie Mellon University, he was a principal designer and engineer of theMach operating system (also known as the Machkernel). He used that work atNeXT Inc. as the foundation of the NeXTSTEP operating system.
Tevanian is fromWestbrook, Maine.[3] He is ofArmenian descent.[4] Tevanian cloned the 1980s arcade gameMissile Command, giving it the same name in a version for theXerox Alto, andMac Missiles! for theMacintosh platform.[5] He has aB.A. degree in mathematics from theUniversity of Rochester andM.S. andPh.D. degrees incomputer science fromCarnegie Mellon University. There, he was a principal designer and engineer of theMach operating system,[6] along withRichard Rashid.
He was Vice President of Software Engineering atNeXT Inc. and was responsible for managing NeXT's software engineering department. There, he designed the NeXTSTEP operating system, based upon his previous academic work on Mach.[6]
He was senior vice president of software engineering atApple from 1997 to 2003, and then chief software technology officer from 2003 to 2006. There, he redesigned NeXTSTEP to become macOS, which becameiOS.[1][6]
InUnited States v. Microsoft in 2001, he was a witness for theUnited States Department of Justice, testifying againstMicrosoft.[7]
In 2001,Bertrand Serlet and Tevanian initiated a secret project at the request ofSteve Jobs, to sell MacOS onVaio laptops.[8] Apple demonstrated the product toSony executives at a golf party inHawaii, with the most expensive Vaio they could acquire.[9]Sony refused, arguingVaio's sales had just started to grow after years of difficulties.[10]
Tevanian left Apple on March 31, 2006, and joined the boards of bothDolby Labs andTheranos, Inc.[11][12] He resigned from the board of Theranos in late 2007, with an acrimonious ending as he faced legal threats and was forced to waive his right to buy a company co-founder's shares, actions he believed were in retaliation for the scepticism he was often alone in expressing about the company's finances and progress in developing its technology at board meetings.[13]
In 2019, Tevanian gave a wide-ranging interview on his time at Theranos for a six-part podcast series called "The Dropout" produced byABC News.[14] In the interview, he said: "I had seen so many things that were bad go on. I would never expect anyone would behave the way that she [Elizabeth Holmes] behaved as a CEO. And believe me, I worked for Steve Jobs. I saw some crazy things. But Elizabeth took it to a new level.”[14]
In May 2006, he joined the board ofTellme Networks, which was later sold toMicrosoft.[15][16]
On January 12, 2010, he becamemanaging director ofElevation Partners.[17]
In July 2015, he cofounded NextEquity Partners and as of 2017 is serving as Managing Director.[18]
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