Before Body Slam, Gianforte Was ‘Godfather’ of Montana Tech
People who worked at the new congressman's software companies say he could be overbearing but not violent.
Before "body slamming" a reporter and then winning a Congressional seat anyway, Greg Gianforte was best known for building a successful software company in perhaps the least likely place for a tech startup: Bozeman, Montana, population 40,000.
Gianforte's former colleagues describe a driven—if sometimes overbearing—entrepreneur who started RightNow, a company that sells customer service software to other firms. Along the way, he created hundreds of jobs and an ecosystem of startups in a town best known for prime skiing and fly-fishing. After taking RightNow public in 2004, Gianforte sold it to Oracle Corp. in 2012 for $1.5 billion. The company still operates out of Bozeman, where Gianforte, 56, lives with his wife.