erry Fiddler, the principal of Zygote Ventures, has helped create and grow a number of companies, as CEO, director, chairman, investor and advisor. Mr. Fiddler is the founder of Wind River and was for 23 years its CEO and Chairman. Since its establishment in 1981 in Fiddler’s Berkeley garage, Wind River grew to become the leading provider of device software worldwide, with over $400M in annual sales, and market cap well over $1B. Its operating systems control devices are everywhere, from the commonplace, such as digital cameras and routers, to the exotic, such as the Mars Rovers. While at Wind River, Fiddler gained an international reputation as an expert in the design and implementation of real-time systems. Wind River was acquired by Intel in 2009.

In addition to Solazyme Mr. Fiddler also sits on several other corporate boards, including Tensilica, Crossbow, and Servo. He has been on the boards of Wind River, Nanochip, db4o, and Axis Systems.

He works actively both with students and in an advisory capacity at a number of universities, including University of California/Berkeley, Stanford, Wharton, and University of Illinois. He has been Foundation Capital executive-in-residence, and adjunct professor at UC Berkeley, teaching entrepreneurship and organizational behavior. He serves on the UC President’s advisory board on science and innovation. He is president of the foundation board of Chabot Space & Science Center, and a trustee of the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute, The Jazz School, and Call of the Sea. He is on the advisory board of Francis Copolla's zoetrope.com.

He received a BA in music and photography, and an MS in computer science, both from University of Illinois.