Ian Wright is originally from New Zealand. He came to California in 1993, where he happened to be a neighbor of Tesla founder Martin Eberhard. He worked with optical switching systems at a company called Altamar Networks until it went out of business, then decided he wanted to start his own company.
Eberhard and his partner Marc Tarpenning had a practice of using fellow entrepreneurs as an audience to rehearse the pitches they developed for venture capitalists. The two listened to and critiqued Wright’s presentation for his optical subsystem startup, then gave him their pitch for Tesla.
Wright’s own startup never did get off the ground, but he found Eberhard and Tarpenning’s idea so interesting that he joined forces with them. Charged recently spoke with Wright about that historic hookup.
Via Steve Crandall.