Steve holds a BS with honors from Macalester College and an MA and PhD from the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) in San Francisco.
He joined Atari in the late 1970s to develop "blue sky" projects at a skunkworks lab inside the home computer division of the company.
While at Lucasfilm he also led a group that developed innovative uses of multimedia technology for education, collaborating with Apple Computer, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Audubon Society.
Steve left Lucasfilm in the early 90s when he was recruited by Bill Gates to run a private company developing digital media libraries and navigable information systems.
After a few years, parts of that company were purchased by Microsoft, where Steve joined as the vice president of Broadband Media Applications.