Peter Currie (businessman)

Peter L. S. Currie (born 1956) is a business executive notable for being the chief financial officer for Netscape during the 1990s. Currie was described by Wall Street Journal reporter Jessica Vascellaro as one of the "Silicon Valley wise men". He advised Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg about business matters in 2009. He is an investor in Internet start-ups and serves on the boards of numerous firms. He is president of Currie Capital and is a charter trustee of Phillips Academy. In February 2011, he was elected as the president of the school's board of trustees, and his term began on July 1, 2012.

Currie graduated from Phillips Academy in Andover in 1974 in the school's first co–educational class. His classmates included jazz Grammy–winner Bill Cunliffe, actor Dana Delany, painter Julian Hatton, poet Karl Kirchwey, writer Nate Lee, political commentator Heather Mac Donald, restaurateur Priscilla Martel, children's TV producer Jonathan Meath, editor Sara Nelson, and sculptor Gar Waterman. Currie earned a B.A. degree from Williams College in 1978 and an M.B.A. degree from Stanford University. He worked in various capacities at Morgan Stanley including holding the title of Principal from 1982 to 1989. He held various management positions at McCaw Cellular from 1989 to 1995 before joining Netscape.

Netscape was a key player that "fueled the Internet revolution", according to a report in The New York Times, and Currie was a key executive who worked with Netscape CEO James Barksdale and founder Marc Andreessen. Netscape developed the Secure Sockets Layer Protocol or SSL for securing online communication which is still widely used as well as JavaScript. Currie was Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer at Netscape since April 1995. Currie was CFO when Netscape went public in 1995. He was Chief Administrative Officer at Netscape from July 1997 until March 1999. In addition to financial management, Currie was responsible for human resources, information technology, facilities, and operations departments.

Currie owned at least 37,500 shares of stock in Netscape which he sold in 1996, according to one report. Netscape was valued at $5 billion in November 1995. In 1999, Netscape was bought by America Online and became a holding company.

Netscape was seen as the first Internet superstar which had a meteoric rise but the firm was undone by numerous forces including well-established software firms such as Microsoft. In a conference in 2005, Currie described how "hectic and crazy things were" during the tumultuous years in the mid 1990s. Currie looked back to the tumultuous Netscape days and commented:

In 1999, Currie and Barksdale and others formed a venture capital firm called Barksdale Group to invest in business start-ups, and raised at least $180 million according to one report. As an investor and consultant, he focused on the enterprise software sector of the business. Currie invested in an Internet start-up called Flipboard in 2010. Currie has affiliations with numerous companies including Corsair Communications, Critical Path, Inkling, Listen.com, Kodak Imaging Network, Kontiki, IPVALUE Management, Oracle America, Tellme Networks, Zantaz, InfoSpace.com, Clearwire, CNET, Safeco, and Palamon Capital Partners. He serves on the board of directors for many firms.

Currie's advice was sought by Facebook chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg in 2010.