Doug Carlston

Douglas Gene "Doug" Carlston (born April 30, 1947 in Boston, Massachusetts) is the founder and current CEO of Tawala Systems based in San Rafael, California. He was previously CEO, chairman, and co-founder of Brøderbund Software, a major software publishing firm that produced classic titles such as The Print Shop, Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?, Prince of Persia, and Myst. Brøderbund was acquired by The Learning Company in 1998 for $420 million, and the combined company was sold to Mattel for $3.6 billion.

Biography

Carlston received his bachelor's degree from Harvard University in 1970 and also studied economics at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. He earned a J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1975. Prior to founding Brøderbund in 1980, he was an attorney.

As of April 2008, he serves as Chairman of the Board of Directors of Public Radio International (PRI) and of the Carlston Family Foundation (formerly the Brøderbund Foundation), and serves on the Boards of the MoveOn Political Action Committee, the Ploughshares Fund, the Albanian American Enterprise Fund, A.H. Belo Corporation and the Long Now Foundation. He also serves on the Committee on University Resources of Harvard University, and the Board of Advisors of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

In March 2014 Carlston donated company records, design documents and games from Brøderbund's history to The National Museum of Play.

In May 2017, Carlston was announced as a principal advisor of MineServer Corporation, which produces servers that autoconfigure to routers for the purpose of playing Minecraft.