Answer key: The InfoWorld tech celebrity quiz

Now that you know how you scored, you probably want to know why. Check out the answers below for the gory details. And be sure to check out our Geek IQ Test to measure your mettle where it really matters.

Question 1: Which tech celebrity has an asteroid named after him?

5 points

d. Linus Torvalds

Spacewatch, a project at the University of Arizona, gave the name “9793 Torvalds” to an asteroid discovered in January 1996. Bill Gates donated $10 million to the construction of a telescope designed to detect asteroids on a collision course with Earth, but so far, no asteroids bear his name.

Question 2: Who’s got more friends than he knows what to do with?

5 points

a. Tom Anderson

As the default friend for all new MySpace accounts, site co-founder Anderson boasted 233,581,162 friends (at press time).

Question 3: What tech honcho was snapped enjoying his wealth in a Silicon Valley hot tub?

5 points

a. Nolan Bushnell, founder of Atari

Nolan Bushnell was the first rich techie to hit pop culture after Pong took the country’s TVs by storm in the mid-1970s. The founder of Atari, he is also responsible for Chuck E. Cheese.

Question 4: Who foisted “Web 2.0” onto an unsuspecting world?

5 points

b. Tim O’Reilly

The longtime tech publisher hosted the first Web 2.0 Summit in 2004. However, Michael Arrington predicted he’d do it, Rose immediately Dugg it, and Scoble’s been Twittering about it ever since.

Question 5: Were Lynn Conway and/or Carver Meade transsexual, married to each other, or what?

5 points

a. Lynn was once a man

Lynn Conway began her transition from male to female in 1968. She remains a transsexual activist, a professor emerita at the University of Michigan, and a 1989-elected member of the National Academy of Engineering.

Question 6: What allegedly Gay-Mafia-obsessed-Hell-mongering-page-view whore runs one of the bigger blog networks?

5 points

a. Nick Denton

Reporter Morgan gained mild notoriety last January when he quit his job at Denton’s Gawker blog after a career lasting less than 24 hours. Denton’s response: “Richard Morgan didn’t so much quit as splutter out. … I wish him luck at a more leisurely institution.” Oh, snap.

Question 7: What got Kahn so steamed?

5 points

d.All of the above

Kahn also alleged that Microsoft registered its own developers at the conference, a claim Microsoft never denied. At the time, Borland’s Quattro Pro spreadsheet provided serious competition for Microsoft Excel. Two years later, Quattro Pro was sold to Novell.

Question 8: What’s Amanda C.’s new gig called?

5 points

b. Sometimesdaily

After a brief fling with mainstream media at ABC, Congdon returns with Sometimesdaily, a strange mix of Rocketboom meets Lonelygirl15 meets … we’re not sure what. Memo to Amanda: We love ya, but please, lose the wacky sidekicks.

Question 9: Who declared the software industry dead when Microsoft beat its antitrust rap?

5 points

c. Mitch Kapor

Mitch Kapor, in addition to founding Lotus and co-designing what many consider to be the first “killer app,” Lotus 1-2-3, founded the Electronic Frontier Foundation in 1990 with Grateful Dead lyricist and activist John Perry Barlow.

Question 10: Who was former broadcast babe Rachel Marsden trashing?

5 points

c. Jimmy Wales

The Wikipedia founder — and the world — caught an earful after Wales broke up with Marsden via a statement he posted on the Wiki. Marsden proceeded to share the couple’s intimate IMs as well as charges that he changed her Wiki entries to be more favorable to her. Memo to Jimmy: Next time you break up with somebody, do it on voicemail like a normal coward.

Question 11: Who headed network software for Microsoft and went on to found a company that made him richer?

5 points

a. Rob Glaser

Microsoft made Rob Glaser a millionaire after 10 years on its payroll. Real Networks made him a billionaire — he was worth 2 billion dollars by the time he turned 40.

Question 12: Can you spot the non-Stanford gazillionaires in this group?

5 points

b. Chad Hurley and Steve Chen

The pair that founded YouTube actually met at PayPal, co-founded by Max Levchin (Slide.com and Yelp.com). None attended Stanford, but that didn’t seem to hold them back much.

Question 13: What did Metcalfe do this time?

5 points

d.All of the above

A former CEO of InfoWorld, Bob Metcalfe celebrated the 25th birthday of Ethernet on May 22, 2008. Now a general partner at Polaris Venture Partners in Boston, Metcalfe frequently held forth on green energy issues.

Question 14: Who was accused of putting his money on hoes and up his nose?

5 points

b. Brad Fitzpatrick, creator of LiveJournal

In a blog entry from December 2003, Fitzpatrick noted some of the wackier theories concerning where LiveJournal’s monthly subscription charges ended up (answer: not on prostitutes and cocaine). He later sold LiveJournal to Six Apart and took a job with Google, where he presumably wastes his money on Yoga and Segways.

Question 15: What kicked off Mitnick’s hacking binge?

5 points

d. Hacking the Los Angeles bus punch card system

The Department of Justice once dubbed him “the most wanted computer criminal in United States history.” He served five years in prison for illegally accessing computer networks and stealing intellectual property. During a “supervised release” from 2000 to 2003, he was freed but not allowed to use any communication technology except land-line phones. Mitnick successfully fought the restriction in court and was finally allowed online. Today, he has traded his black hat for a white one and — what else? — runs a computer security consultancy.

Question 16: Whose “Hot or Not?” clone didn’t turn out so hot?

5 points

d. Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook)

Zuckerberg’s Facemash.com lasted four hours before being pulled by Harvard’s computer services department. The Z-man was called before an administrative review board but remained a student long enough to do some programming for a budding social network called ConnectU, whose founders later sued him for stealing their ideas. Originality is so overrated.

Question 17: Who hacked together the first Apple II word processor?

5 points

a. John Draper (aka Captain Crunch)

Legendary phone phreak John Draper — aka Captain Crunch — met students Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs two years before they founded Apple, giving them a tour of the VW Bus he used to run a pirate radio station. According to Draper, he first began breaking into the phone system to get free calls in the mid-1960s, when he was in the U.S. Air Force and stationed in Alaska.

Question 18: Which book claims you can make more by selling less?

5 points

a.The Long Tail

The title refers to a classic sales curve, in which the “long tail” of products that sell in smaller numbers ultimately outweigh the handful of hits at the top. If you’ve ever heard “markets are conversations,” “groups are often smarter than the smartest people in them,” or “ideas spread like viruses,” you’ve heard someone quoting one of the other books. But we’ll save you the trouble of reading all 1,086 pages by summarizing them in five words: The Internet has changed everything. There. Now you can go back to watching YouTube.

Question 19: Which numerically enhanced Web firm was founded by Jason Fried?

5 points

b. 37signals

Among other things, 37signals is responsible for Basecamp, Highrise, Backpack, and other cloud-like Web apps. 43folders is a productivity site created by Merlin Man, 30boxes is an alternative online calendar created by Narendra Rocherolle and Nick Wilder. “27 Jennifers” is a song by indie artist Mike Doughty.

Question 20: Which titan of tech can play Beethoven on the guitar?

5 points

a. Oracle chairman Larry Ellison

Classical guitar playing is one of Ellison’s lesser-known hobbies. Ellison, 63, is better known for his yachtsmanship. His $200 million yacht, Rising Sun, is the fifth largest of its kind in the world. His racing yacht, Sayonara, won the infamous 1998 Syndey-to-Hobart Yacht Race.

Ready for more? Take another stab at the quiz, or quizzes past: InfoWorld tech celebrity quiz Test your geek IQ Test your network security IQ InfoWorld news quiz: May 23