Santa Cruzian Ed Colligan — Palm, Handspring, Treo, Pre — just entered the Computer History Museum's Hall of Fellows alongside Jeff Hawkins and Donna Dubinsky. The smartphone in your pocket owes him a royalty check.

Here's a stat that should humble every founder pitching "disruption" on LinkedIn: a decade before the iPhone, three people built the modern smartphone. Phone, email, apps, one pocketable device. It was called the Treo. One of the people who willed it into existence now lives on our stretch of coastline.

In April, the Computer History Museum inducted the Palm Team — Jeff Hawkins, Donna Dubinsky, and Ed Colligan — as 2026 Fellows, "for development of groundbreaking, commercially successful handheld computers and smartphones, which established the foundation for today's mobile computing." That's museum-speak for: they drew the blueprint everyone else traced.

Let's register the achievement. Colligan came to Silicon Valley in 1985 and became the first VP of marketing at Palm Computing, where the team shipped the PalmPilot, Palm III, and Palm V — establishing Palm OS as the market leader with more than 90% share. Ninety percent. Coca-Cola would sacrifice a limb for that number. Then, instead of coasting, he left to cofound Handspring, built the Treo — the forbearer of every smartphone that followed — then led the deal reuniting Handspring and Palm and drove the company's smartphone business past $2 billion a year. As CEO, he spearheaded the creation of webOS and the Palm Pre — software so far ahead of its time that the card-swiping gestures on your iPhone today are, functionally, a tribute act.

Did Palm win the war? No. Apple and Google had more capital than the GDP of mid-sized nations. But history is written by museums, not market caps, and the museum just spoke.

“Great cultures build great teams that accomplish great things”

— Ed Colligan

What I love most — what I find genuinely moving — is what Colligan said at the podium. He used his acceptance to celebrate the teams at Palm and Handspring, and pointedly pushed back against the industry's growing obsession with the "lone genius," inviting alumni in the room to stand and be recognized. A colleague described his leadership as marketing run with "insight, humor, and a sense of controlled insanity." That's the tell of a great builder: greatness expressed in the agency of others, not the size of the exit. Computer History MuseumComputer History Museum

And the third act? He now spends his time on California's Central Coast investing in and mentoring entrepreneurs, having cofounded Central Coast Angels with his wife Bobbi Burns to fund early-stage companies in our region, alongside work in renewable energy with Low Carbon. He built the future once. Now he's underwriting the next one — ours.

Watch the ceremony here.

Then put your phone down. It's rude at dinner. Ed said so.

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