Tom Siebel is Back! A Software Pioneer Explores IoT and A.I.

Tom Siebel is a legend in enterprise software, having sold his company, Siebel Software, to Larry Ellison's Oracle (ORCL) in 2006 for $3.4 billion. You might not immediately suspect that about him in person. His mop of curly hair and his thoughtful expression give him the air of a Bob Dylan of technology, an artist, while his youthful enthusiasm suggests he's still on the Silicon Valley startup road trip, even though at age 64, he's seen four decades of the tech world's evolution. Unlike many very accomplished people, he deflects from his own ego and endows his peers in tech, such as Ellison, with heaps of praise, calling them "brilliant" "very, very smart," or "so, so smart." Siebel recently swung by the Barron's offices to chat about C3 IoT, his next company, which he claims has already surpassed established firms such as IBM (IBM) and GE (GE) in the Internet of Things.