Pursuits
David Kalt, Guitar Hero
The computer scientist CEO of a billion-dollar tech company finds his calling selling guitars
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When David Kalt graduated from the University of Michigan in 1989, he followed his dream of working in the music business by taking a job at a Chi-cago recording studio. He burned out after only two years. “The glamour of working with rock stars and rock star wannabes gets old real quick when you’re working 100 hours a week,”
he says. Kalt then earned a master’s in computer science from DePaul University and founded a software company, Third Party Solutions. By 1998 it had become the dominant marketing system for travel agencies. In 1999 he co-founded OptionsXpress Holdings, an options-trading platform that Charles Schwab eventually bought in 2011 for a little more than $1 billion.