CHARLES Simonyi built the first versions of Microsoft Office, a creation that eventually made him a billionaire.
He dated homemaking mogul Martha Stewart before the pair split and, in her documentary “Martha”, the businesswoman opened up about the bitter separation.
Creating a revolutionary product
Charles was born on September 10, 1948, in Budapest, Hungary.
His father, Karoly Simonyi was a prize winning professor of electrical engineering and even created the first Hungarian nuclear particle accelerator.
In secondary school, Charles worked as a nightwatchman at a computer laboratory where he guarded a large Soviet Ural II mainframe which inspired him to pursue computer science.
In 1968, he moved to the United States after a brief stint in Denmark and attended the University of California, Berkeley where he studied Engineering Mathematics & Statistics.
He was recruited by Xerox PARC where he developed the Xerox Alto, one of the first personal computers, alongside Robert Metcalfe, Alan Kay and Butler Lampson.
After visiting Microsoft in 1981 and eventually joining the company, Charles built some of the organization’s most profitable products including Word and Excel.
He stayed at the company during its rapid rise and became one of its highest ranking developers.
Meeting Martha
Charles met Martha Stewart after her first divorce in 1990 and her short lived relationship with Sir Anthony Hopkins.
Martha had ended her relationship with Anthony because she was unable to avoid associating the actor with his portrayal of the fictional cannibal Hannibal Lector.
Charles and Martha dated for fifteen years and he even featured on her television show in 2007.
However, the relationship was strained when Martha became embroiled in a media scandal.
The homemaking superstar had sold some stocks after receiving material, nonpublic information from her broker Peter Bacanovic.
Soon, she was on the cover of several national newspapers but refused to comment on the scandal.
Instead, she said that she wanted “to focus on my salad”.
Martha eventually resigned from the board of directors of the New York Stock Exchange and was found guilty of felony charges of conspiracy to obstruct, of obstruction oaf an agency proceeding and of making false statements to federal investigators.
In July 2004, she was sentenced to a five-month stay in a federal correctional facility and a two-year period of supervised release.
According to the homemaking expert, Charles only visited her once in prison.
When asked about why Charles only visited her once, Martha said: “I don’t think he liked hanging out with somebody in jail.”
A shocking split
In her documentary, Martha opened up about how Charles broke up with her.
She said: “We had this elaborate trip planned.
“We were visiting the President of Iceland and we were in bed and he said, ‘you know Martha, I’m going to get married…. I’m gonna get married to Lisa’.
“I said, ‘Lisa who?’ I mean, he hadn’t told me a word.
“’And by the way, her parents don’t want me to ever speak to you again.’”
She added: “I thought that was the most horrible thing a person could do.
“How can a man, who had spent 15 years with me, just do that?”
Charles went on to marry Lisa Persdotter, the daughter of a Swedish millionaire, in 2008.
Charles’ friend and colleague Bill Gates attended the ceremony.
Eventually, Charles had two children with his wife and the family now live in Villa Simonyi in Medina, Washington.
Martha on Netflix
A Netflix documentary which explores Martha Stewart’s incredible life landed on the platform on October 30, 2024.
Martha has, however, slammed the documentary bearing her name and was critical of the footage used by the director.
She felt that he used footage from when she had “ruptured” her achilles tendon, which made her look like a “lonely old lady”.
Martha added: “But again, he doesn’t even mention why — that I can live through that and still work seven days a week.”
The superstar also was unhappy with the use of classical music in the series, when she had asked for rap music.
