Net Perceptions

In the Summer of 1996, David Gardiner, a former Ph.D. student of John Riedl, introduced Riedl to Steven Snyder. Snyder had been an early employee at Microsoft, but had left Microsoft to come to Minnesota to do a Ph.D. in Psychology. He realized the commercial potential of collaborative filtering, and encouraged the team to found a company in April 1996. By June, Gardiner, Snyder, Miller, Riedl, and Konstan incorporated their company, and by July had their first round of funding, from Hummer Winblad Venture Partners.[5] Net Perceptions went on to be one of the leading companies in personalization during the Internet boom of the late 1990s,[6] went public,[7] had 400 employees and stock at $60 per share,[8] and acquired marketing services startup KD1 for $126 million.[9] Then over time the stock lost 95 percent of its value, and it laid off most employees.[8] The company stayed in business until 2004.[10][11]