Rocket Fuel
By Margie Wylie
Staff Writer, CNET NEWS.COM

In 1994, Java was an obscure, nearly dead interactive TV project buried deep in the bowels of Sun. Then Kim Polese came along and made it into a household word. Today, the 34-year-old software engineer is CEO of her own company.

Like everything she does, Polese (pronounced po-LAY-zay) made it all look easy. The project manager for what was then called Oak, she was instrumental in convincing Sun to take Java to the Internet. Then she, with three of Sun's best engineers, took off to start their own company and managed to convince Sun's

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management team to be grateful in the process. And grateful they should be. Sixteen months after Java's announcement, Sun's stock price has soared. Now Polese's new company, Marimba, is on the brink of releasing not-so-sexy, but oh-so-crucial Java programming tools, just in time to head off criticisms that Java is only good for making icons dance.

If Polese is under any strain, it doesn't show. The down-to-earth Berkeley native laughs easily and keeps the lop-sided start-up mentality under control by dancing--you can even catch her performing occasionally--and keeping the rust off her Italian, with a firm eye on a year off in Italy. NEWS.COM interviewed Polese in our San Francisco offices, where she talked about the miracle of Marimba, Java security, and keeping an even keel in Silicon Valley.

NEWS.COM: You're 34 years old. That's young to be a CEO.
Polese: I suppose it's all relative these days. In the start-up environment you have CEOs of 24 or 25, so I sort of feel seasoned at this point!

NEXT: How it all started