Founder, vice chairman and original CEO, Priceline.com AGE 42 E-MAILjay.walker@priceline.com BIO Walker has spent his life
devising marketing strategies that change the way people buy
things. A Monopoly-game whiz kid who took a year off from Cornell
to start a newspaper in Ithaca, N.Y. ("You don't want to compete
with Gannett..."), Walker graduated with a bachelor's degree in
industrial relations in 1978. He spent the next 20 years creating
15 more businesses, including Catalog Media Corp., which told
then FedEx chief operating officer Jim Barksdale (now of
Netscape) how to corner the market on shipping mail-order goods;
and New Sub Services, which proved credit-card bill inserts would
sell magazine subscriptions. 1998 POWER PLAY Priceline.com, the
online auction house Walker launched in April that lets airline
ticket buyers name their price, handled $10 million in
transactions in its first 90 days. On Aug. 11, the privately held
company was awarded a patent for its way of doing business,
virtually ensuring its place as an e-commerce powerhouse. PLACE
YOUR BETS Having garnered $27 million in second-round
financing--$20 million from General Atlantic Partners and the rest
from the original private backers--Priceline.com is poised to
expand into car rentals, hotel-room bookings and other services
under a new CEO, former Citicorp president Richard S. Braddock
(Walker says he typically cedes control of his start-ups to
"seasoned managers"). But with no immediate plans for an ipo, it
might be a while before outside investors are invited to share
the spoils.
