Jim Robinson

From dKosopedia

Category: Rabid right-wingers

Jim Robinson is the founder, owner, and operator of Free Republic.

Background

• Born in Fresno, CA, in 1945, still lives there today.
• Served four years as a Navy electrician.
• Sadly, he has suffered from muscular dystrophy since 1971.
• Worked as a computer programmer, systems analyst, and programming manager through the 70s and 80s, developing accounting software for agribusiness.
• In 1988, Robinson acquired the rights to his own software from the company he had been working for, and set out with two partners to form his own business, which was grossing several million dollars a year by the mid-90s. In 1994, an IPO was floated, but within two years the company's capital had dried up and Robinson had been pushed out due to an inability to perform his duties following his wife's incapacitation by a stroke. Robinson himself was unable to walk by 1997.
• Bought a failing Internet Service Provider in 1995 and created Electronic Orchard, a web design and hosting service - the birthing ground of the Free Republic website, which he started in 1996. The forums (based on software written by Robinson) were introduced in 1997, and the rest is, well, very disturbing history.
• Has two children, one of whom assists in the operation of the site.
• Describes himself as shy and quiet.

External Links

• Salon on Robinson, 1999
• Robinson's own account of FR history and his personal finances, from which most of the above is taken. May be unreliable in its details; Robinson has been accused of financial chicanery and soliciting unnecessary reader donations.
• Short pro-Robinson vet bio
• Bio and resume from his own website.