Inventor of Photoshop: Who is John Warnock?
John Warnock, who co-founded Adobe with Charles Geschke in 1982, died at 82. After retiring as CEO in 2000, Warnock remained board chairman with Geschke until 2017.
John and Dr. Chuck Geschke ignited the desktop publishing revolution by founding Adobe with PostScript in 1982. His vision and passion have defined the desktop era and unleashed creativity and opportunity for millions of people, enabling Adobe to deliver groundbreaking innovations such as Illustrator, the ubiquitous PDF file format, and Acrobat, Photoshop, and Premiere Pro. John is considered one of the greatest inventors of our generation, who has had a significant impact on the way we communicate with words, images, and videos.
John Edward Warnock (October 6, 1940 – August 19, 2023) was an American computer scientist, inventor, and technology businessman best known for co-founding Adobe Systems Inc., the graphics and publishing software company, with Charles Geschke in 1982.
John was incredibly wise about which technologies would delight customers and create business value. John and his graphic artist wife, Marva, set the standard for customer empathy at Adobe.
Who is John Warnock?
Warnock co-founded Adobe with Charles Geschke in 1982 after meeting him as a colleague at Xerox. Their first product was Adobe PostScript, a groundbreaking technology that sparked the desktop publishing revolution. Warnock retired as CEO in 2000 and remained chairman of the board, which he shared with Dr. Geschke, until 2017. From that date until 2023, he continued his duty as a member of the Board of Directors until his death.
Warnock was awarded the prestigious National Medal of Technology and Innovation by President Barack Obama for technical achievements; the Computer Entrepreneur Award by the IEEE Computer Society; He was awarded the American Electronics Association Medal of Achievement and the Marconi Award for his contributions to information science and communications.