Eric Engstrom

Career Engstrom had joined Microsoft on a suggestion from a friend, starting in a consulting position for customer support. After the contract term had ended, he was given offers for a permanent job at both Microsoft and at Data I/O, opting to take the latter due to its larger salary despite the Microsoft offer having included stock options. and the subject of the book Renegades of the Empire by Michael Drummond.

Engstrom left Microsoft after establishing the basis of DirectX and founded Wildseed around 2000; Wildseed was an early mobile phone technology company and was subsequently acquired by America On-line in 2005; within AOL, the Wildseed acquisition reunited Engstrom and Eisler. Engstorm had also co-founded Catalytic, a software firm based in Kirkland, Washington but using a staff of programmers from India housed on a campus named New Oroville near Hyderabad. While they had planned a 500-acre campus in India, the Great Recession forced them to scale back plans to only a 50-acre facility there, and by 2010, the company had been wound down.

He returned to work at Microsoft in 2008 working in the areas of Windows Mobile and user-targeted advertising for Microsoft's online services. After leaving Microsoft again in 2014, he spent his time as a chief technology officer and adviser for a number of startups.

Personal life and death Engstrom met his wife Cindy during his Wildseed endeavour, and married her on February 2, 2005. They had four children. Engstrom suffered an accident in the lab when a monitor fell on his foot. He took too much Tylenol which caused liver toxicity, and died on December 1, 2020.