Mike Ford

Mike Ford came to Autodesk from the commercial side of early software rather than from programming. His work on marketing, sales analysis and the third-party dealer network shaped how AutoCAD reached architects and engineers, who bought it through resellers rather than direct from the company.

Mike Ford was one of Autodesk's 16 original co-founders. While John Walker and Dan Drake worked on AutoCAD itself, Ford worked on marketing and sales, including the dealer network that distributed the product, and on tracking Autodesk's position against other microcomputer software companies. John Walker's Information Letter of July 1985, written for the first founders' meeting after the public offering, credits Ford's analysis of the SoftLetter 100 rankings for the company's assessment that it had reached roughly seventh place in microcomputer software, against a founding goal of the top five. (Exact birth year remains publicly undisclosed).