Mark Edwin Kriegsman

Developer of large-scale rule-based, statistical, and text-processing AI systems, Kriegsman is an American entrepreneur, computer programmer, inventor, and writer. His fascination with computers caught the attention of a local newspaper in 1979, when he was 13. Lucy Meyer of the New Jersey Summit Herald reported that "Mark... likes to make up programs, sometimes patterns and sometimes short programs 'that just pop into my head.'" He parlayed this skill and interest into writing computer games; at age 15 he released his first game, "StarBlaster", and later his second, "Panic Button."

He graduated from Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, where he studied cognitive science. After graduation, Kriegsman worked for Cognitive Systems, Inc. (started by notable AI researcher Roger Schank), developing large-scale rule-based, statistical, and text-processing AI systems. He later integrated those three technologies in a paper he wrote for IEEE.

Designing document management systems at Interleaf led him to found his first startup, Document.com, which was later acquired by Merrill. After founding Clearway Technologies, which was acquired by Mirror Image Internet, he served as a senior developer at @stake, which was later acquired by Symantec. Clearway created the FireSite web accelerator and content delivery network, and the early WebArcher internet search tool.

In late 1998, Clearway was involved in an early ad-blocking controversy. Its release of the ad-blocking web software AdScreen angered its user base and spurred a lively discussion of the role of advertisements in web publishing. Based on user feedback, Kriegsman pulled AdScreen just two days later.

He has been an active participant in several, often overlapping, areas of software development. He is one of the founders of Veracode, reflecting a long-standing interest in software security. Kriegsman is also interested in both secure information sharing and the open-access movement, and has been an outspoken skeptic of what he sees as shady business practices in the computer industry.