After starting at Hewlett-Packard France and Europe (Geneva) from 1968 to 1974, Jean-Louis Gassée left the group to take control of the French subsidiary of a U.S. computer manufacturer, Data General, where he was in charge of Southern European countries and the Middle East. In 1979, he was asked to take over the French subsidiary of Exxon Office Systems. End of 1980, Apple invited him to start the group's activities in France. He left Apple in 1990 and founded Be, Inc.., A software company system for multimedia applications. Introduced on the Nasdaq (BeOS) in 1999, Be was sold to Palm in 2001. In parallel, from 2002, after the sale of Be, he began a third career in venture capital and became General Partner at Allegis Capital. He is the author of La 3e pomme (Hachette Literature), and was also a weekly columnist for Liberation from 1995 to 2003, and several U.S. and Japanese publications.

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