18 Facts About Carl Bass

Carl Bass is a former president and chief executive officer of Autodesk, Inc.

Carl Bass was born in New York City, to a chemist father and school teacher mother.

Carl Bass returned to Cornell and graduated with Bachelor of Arts in mathematics in 1983.

In 1981, Carl Bass co-founded a computer graphics company called Flying Moose Systems and Graphics Ltd.

Carl Bass commercialized HOOPS, a 3D graphics system originally developed at Cornell University in the mid-1980s.

Carl Bass served as Ithaca Software's chief technology officer and CEO.

Carl Bass joined Autodesk when the company acquired Ithaca Software in 1993, serving as the chief architect for AutoCAD.

In 1995, Carl Bass was forced out by Autodesk's then president and CEO Carol Bartz, only to be rehired five months later, after top Autodesk engineers said they needed Carl Bass's software development skills.

Carl Bass left Autodesk in 1999 to launch Buzzsaw, an online service for management of construction projects, where he served as president and CEO.

Carl Bass returned to Autodesk when it acquired the company in 2001.

Carl Bass emphasized vertical markets focusing on model-based design, simulation, and lifecycle management.

Carl Bass helped lead the company to develop Building Information Modeling and generative design technologies.

Carl Bass serves on the Board of Directors of Autodesk, HP Inc.

Carl Bass serves on the board of trustees of the Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, Art Center College of Design, and California College of the Arts, and is a member of the advisory boards of Cornell Computing and Information Science, UC Berkeley School of Information, and UC Berkeley College of Engineering.

Carl Bass announced that he would be stepping down as Autodesk's CEO effective on February 8,2017.

Carl Bass remains a board member and special advisor to the company.

Carl Bass owns a workshop near his home in Berkeley, Calif.

Carl Bass' projects have included furniture, sculpture and a walk-in wooden rocket ship he built for his children, which is on permanent display at Chabot Science Center.