Author: Jeanne-Vida Douglas

Peter Fritz was born in 1943 in the historic city of Arad in Transylvania, during the Second World War. Following the war, his city became part of the People”s Republic of Romania, and he grew up a proud and feisty pioneer. But the injustices and persecutions of the communist government weighed heavily on his family and in late 1961, after 14 years of waiting for a permit to leave the country, they made their way to Australia. Peter began working as a cleaner, studied English and later attended university part time. By the late 1960s, he found himself working in the newly emerging field of computer science. In 1971 the company he was working for was forced to close by creditors, and, rather than lose his job, he used what he knew to launch a new company with some likeminded peers. Forty years and a hugely successful career as an entrepreneur later, having co-founded a $1.25 billion company that employs 6000 people worldwide, he wanted to gather his experiences in business into a book so he could hand his expertise down to his children. He began to look for a writing partner, someone who also wanted to share what they knew with others, and after asking around, a friend and business associate suggested he meet Jeanne-Vida Douglas. A multi-award winning business journalist with a decade”s experience covering the information technology sector, Jeanne-Vida was looking for a way to gather together the very best stories she came across in her work into a single edition. At the time Jeanne-Vida was juggling her own small business as a freelance journalist and business writer with the demands of two small children, and was keen to encourage others to find ways to turn their skills into microenterprises. The pair met in early 2007 at Peter”s offices in Chippendale in Sydney, Jeanne-Vida bouncing her baby son on her lap, and they agreed to meet regularly for coffee to figure out how to turn these ideas and real life experiences into a book that could be shared down the generations and across the business community. Over many meetings they gathered ideas, wrote and rewrote, discussed and argued the fundamental ideas and real life examples that now fill this book.