Steve Johnson
CEO, Choicestream
Prior to founding ChoiceStream, Steve Johnson was Vice President of America Online’s Software and Technology Development division. While at AOL, Mr. Johnson led the development of AOL 4.0, You’ve Got Pictures™, as well as all telephony and broadcast products. At AOL, he was also responsible for media technology research, development, and acquisition. In this role, he served as principal technology negotiator in AOL’s 1998 acquisition of Netscape and was the technology lead on the transition team of Netscape into AOL and the formation of the Sun-AOL iPlanet strategic alliance. In 1991, Steve was the founder and co-CEO of Johnson-Grace Company, a company specializing in image, sound and video compression technology, which was purchased by America Online, Inc. in 1996. He holds a US patent, issued in 1999, for the image compression technology currently used on the America Online service. Steve graduated from the University of Southern California in 1980 with a Bachelor’s degree in Economics and received a Masters degree in Public Policy from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government in 1985, and continued in Harvard’s doctoral program in Economics and Philosophy until 1990.