How Glen and Howard Tullman Became Entrepreneurs

Two of Chicago's leading entrepreneurs happen to be brothers. But it's a good thing they didn't actually grow up together. Howard Tullman, 14 years older, already had left the nest when Glen, the baby of the family, persuaded their mother to let him cut a hole in the roof of the family's New Providence (N.J.) home to test his ideas on solar energy. Mom never said no. But Howard, born bossy, wouldn't have let Glen experiment on his own. "He would have wanted a bigger hole," says Glen. Admits Howard: "I was an overpowering presence."

These days, the brothers communicate regularly, often e-mailing each other in the wee hours, when they're not focused on running their own businesses—Glen at Allscripts Healthcare Solutions (MDRX), an electronic records and medical software outfit, and Howard at Flashpoint, The Academy of Media Arts & Sciences, a for-profit digital arts school in Chicago. The two share more than chief executive titles. They're creative and competitive, and in their off hours both have developed a love of magic.