Founder Profile
Charles Geschke
Last reviewed: September 2026 · By Swet Parvadiya
Who is Charles Geschke?
Charles Geschke is a founder of Adobe Inc., which was founded in 1982 with John Warnock.
- Company founded
- Adobe Inc.
- Founded
- 1982
- Co-founders
- John Warnock
Background
Computer scientist with a PhD from Carnegie Mellon who founded the Imaging Sciences Laboratory at Xerox PARC.
Founding Story
Charles Geschke (1939-2021) co-founded Adobe alongside John Warnock in 1982. He served as Chief Operating Officer and later President until his retirement in 2000, focusing heavily on operational scaling and corporate culture. He co-led the company through its explosive growth phase during the 1980s and 1990s desktop publishing era.
Education: Xavier University.
Charles Matthew "Chuck" Geschke was born on September 11, 1939 and died on April 16, 2021. With John Warnock he also co-created the PDF document format. Charles Geschke was born in 1939.