Jay S. Walker

Jay S. Walker studied industrial and labor relations at Cornell University and worked as a direct-marketing and magazine entrepreneur before founding Walker Digital, a Stamford, Connecticut business-idea lab that patented e-commerce methods. Priceline.com came out of that lab. Walker's bet was that airlines would quietly sell empty seats below published fares if a customer committed to a price first, without seeing the airline or exact flight times.

Jay S. Walker founded Priceline.com and launched it in April 1998 with the patented 'Name Your Own Price' system for airline tickets, later adding hotels, rental cars and mortgages. Priceline went public on Nasdaq in March 1999 and briefly made Walker a paper billionaire. A sister venture he backed, WebHouse Club, tried to apply the same bidding model to groceries and petrol and shut down in October 2000. Walker stepped back from Priceline as its shares collapsed in the dot-com bust, and Jeffery Boyd's management team rebuilt the business around hotels. He later returned to Walker Digital and bought the TEDMED health conference in 2008.

Jay S. Walker was born in 1955. Education: Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations.