Tom Siebel learned to sell software at Oracle, then left to build software for the people who sell. Siebel Systems made programs that tracked every customer, call and open deal so a sales team could see its whole pipeline in one place. When the San Mateo company went public in June 1996, most salespeople still kept their accounts in notebooks, card files and spreadsheets. Siebel was three years old and selling to some of the largest sales forces in the country.

An Oracle Salesman's Fix

Tom Siebel and Pat House founded the company in 1993. Siebel had run sales teams at Oracle and knew how little managers could see about their own deals. Their product gave every rep, manager and executive the same view of each customer. Siebel sold to large companies with big sales forces, and it charged big license fees. The category later got a name, customer relationship management, and Siebel led it for most of a decade.

Back to Oracle

Siebel priced its IPO at $17 a share in June 1996. Revenue grew fast through the dot-com years and passed $1 billion a year. Then the bubble burst, corporate budgets shrank, and lighter web-based rivals such as Salesforce went after its customers. In January 2006 Oracle, Tom Siebel's old employer, closed its purchase of Siebel for about $5.85 billion. Tom Siebel later founded C3.ai.

Cover: Mercury, Jan Harmensz. Muller. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for Mercury, god of merchants (the art of the sale).