High Five: Meet Richard Daley, CEO Of Pentaho
Richard Daley's been developing business intelligence systems since the mid-1980s, when he worked on what IBM called "executive information systems." Now he's the CEO of open source BI company Pentaho. Daley water-skis every day before work near his company's Orlando, Fla., headquarters.Richard Daley
CEO of Pentaho
Interview by J. Nicholas Hoover

|


Photograph by Eric Larson
|
1 |

|
WHY ORLANDO WORKS
"It's not as important to be in Silicon Valley when you're based on an open source business model. We have a very active developer community located throughout the world. If you look, JBoss is in Atlanta, Red Hat's in Raleigh, you'll see Digium over in Alabama. There's a bunch of successful open source companies that aren't based in the valley." |
2 |

|
ENDANGERED SPECIES
Daley is one of a dying breed. "Nobody water-skis anymore. Wakeboarding's a lot more exciting for kids." Wakeboarding tricks like "rails," the "Superman," and backflips are fun to watch, but it's harder to discern water-skiing expertise as a spectator, he says. |
3 |

|
PIONEER DAYS
Daley's been called a BI pioneer. "We were building dashboards on mainframes back in the mid-'80s. They would only go to a few elite members of the organization in the Fortune 500, who could afford these things." |
4 |

|
GOAL!
Daley has four kids at home who love soccer. "It's constant--we're always traveling from one tournament to another. I'm actually one of the calm parents on the sideline versus the ones screaming and trying to coach the kids all the time. I let their coaches do that stuff; I'm there for support and encouragement." |
5 |

|
DOESN'T FEEL THE MAGIC
Though Daley lives near Disney World, he doesn't get over there much. "We've probably been there just a couple times. It's kind of like another planet, so we avoid that side of town." |
We welcome your comments on this topic on our social media channels, or
[contact us directly] with questions about the site.
More Insights