James Joaquin
Relationship to Ted: Co-founder of ActiveSite and When.com; recurring collaborator across multiple ventures
Career
- Apple — Product manager on Newton. Two Newton team members later joined When.com
- Diamond Multimedia — Joined with Tony Espinosa after Apple, working on graphics cards
- ActiveSite (~1996) — Co-founder of the consulting firm that incubated When.com
- When.com (~1997–99) — Co-founder, head of business development. Could have done any of the four co-founders' roles but chose biz dev because "he was really good with partners"
- AOL — Let go after the When.com acquisition (AOL only wanted engineering + product management, not biz dev or marketing). Vested his shares
- *Ofoto* — Co-founder and president. Later called Ted "out of retirement" to help with product management
- Described as "a good historian" by Ted
Significance
Joaquin appears at multiple inflection points in Ted's career — the Newton connection at Apple, co-founding both ActiveSite and When.com, and pulling Ted back into tech for Ofoto. He represents the recurring Silicon Valley pattern of a trusted team reconvening across ventures.