Henry Brian Valentine (born November 28, 1959) is an American software executive and casual poker player. He has held positions at large companies including Intel, Microsoft and Amazon.com.

Early life

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Born in Centralia, Washington, he graduated from high school in 1977 and enrolled in Centralia Community College (CCC).[1] Upon graduating from CCC in 1979 with an associate degree, Valentine then enrolled in the University of Washington's engineering department.[2] Valentine spent one year at UW before taking a leave of absence in 1980.

In the fall of 1981, Valentine enrolled in the Computer Science and Math school at Eastern Washington University (EWU) in Cheney, Washington.[3] In his senior year at EWU, Valentine was selected to develop the software for an automated energy management and control system.[4]

He graduated from EWU with a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science in May 1983 and took a job as a software engineer at Intel, working on software for in-circuit emulators, and major systems programming for Unix and VMS applications.[citation needed]

Microsoft

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In August 1987, Valentine resigned from Intel and took a position at Microsoft after his former Intel colleague Paul Maritz invited him to join.[5] He spent the next 19 years launching some of the most widely used software products of their time. He led the team that launched Microsoft Exchange Server 4.0, 5.0 and 5.5.[6] As a result of his success with Exchange, he was personally asked by Steve Ballmer in 1998 to rescue the then-failing Windows 2000[7] project. In one year, Valentine was able to successfully deliver Windows 2000 in December 1999. He then went on to lead the teams responsible for Windows XP,[8] XP SP2, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Vista.

Amazon

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In 2006, Valentine moved to join Amazon.com[9] where he built and led the eCommerce Platform team, before leaving in early 2014.[10]

Post-Amazon

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Valentine joined Ivy Softworks, an Innovation Studio in Seattle, in September 2014 where he worked until 2015.[11]

Other ventures

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Valentine has two final tables[12] at the World Series of Poker Circuit Tour and nine cashes[12] at the World Series of Poker Tour.

References

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  1. ^ "Distinguished alumni". centralia.edu. Archived from the original on 2015-09-23.
  2. ^ http://www.linkedin.com/pub/brian-valentine/8/a08/5b2 [self-published source]
  3. ^ "Brian Valentine: Senior Vice President - Windows Division, Microsoft Corp". American Association of Community Colleges. Archived from the original on 2015-06-26.
  4. ^ "The Motivator Behind the Windows 2000 Development Team". Microsoft. Redmond. February 16, 2000. Archived from the original on October 24, 2012.
  5. ^ "The Motivator Behind the Windows 2000 Development Team". Microsoft. Archived from the original on 2012-10-24. Retrieved 2014-09-26.
  6. ^ "Microsoft Names Steven Sinofsky and Brian Valentine Vice President". 21 December 1998.
  7. ^ "The Motivator Behind the Windows 2000 Development Team", Microsoft.com
  8. ^ "Windows XP has saved industry money, says Microsoft". ZDNet.
  9. ^ "Home".
  10. ^ "Veteran Seattle tech exec Brian Valentine retires from Amazon". 17 January 2014.
  11. ^ "Seattle Start-Up Factory Hires Former Amazon and Microsoft Executive". 30 September 2014.
  12. ^ a b "Brian Valentine's profile on The Hendon Mob". The Hendon Mob Poker Database.