[citation needed] Rafsky established Gemnet's operations initially in Ann Arbor, Michigan, but was later moved following Citicorp's acquisition of the company.
The first version of the software was delivered to Harris Bank in 1983, with a focus on creating a time series-oriented database engine and the 4GL scripting language.
In 1984, the company was bought by Citicorp, which led a series of new developments with the FAME program until selling off the unit to private equity firm Warburg Pincus in 1994.
Rafsky worked with future Baidu founder and chief executive officer Robin Li, who helped pioneer early search engine algorithms.
He retired from full-time work at Acquire Media in 2018, and currently serves the firm part-time doing research in Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing, and statistical modeling of the business news ecosystem.
He is the brother of Robert Rafsky, author and AIDS rights activist known for his televised confrontation with Bill Clinton during the 1992 Presidential Election.