Tigers of the Week: Frank Moss '71, Marin Soljačić *00, and Steve Teig '82

When Technology Review named this year’s “50 most innovative companies” in early March, the list spotlighted familiar names like Apple, Facebook, GM, IBM, and Intel. But also included were several smaller firms, including three new additions that were founded by Princeton alumni:

 

Bluefin Labs, co-founded by Frank Moss ’71, was hailed for its creative use of social-media data. Its analysis provides advertisers and TV broadcasters with “fine-grained information about audience size and sentiment,” the magazine said. Moss, the former CEO of Tivoli Systems Inc., recently left his post as director of the MIT Media Lab (the subject of his most recent book).

 

WiTricity, co-founded by Marin Soljačić *00, was one of three transportation companies on the innovative companies list. Its focus is on battery technology, wireless power transmission, and other applications related to electric cars. Soljačić, a theoretical physicist and MIT professor, received a MacArthur fellowship in 2008.

 

Tabula, led by founder, president, and chief technology officer Steve Teig ’82, has created “chip designs that can reconfigure themselves faster than existing reprogrammable designs,” according to the magazine. Teig started the company in 2003 (a year after he broke Thomas Edison’s record for patents filed by an individual in a single year, according to the Tabula website), and last fall, he won the World Technology Network’s top honor for IT hardware innovation.