Tom Payne is an electrical engineer and serial entrepreneur who now utilizes his expertise and success to support new ventures as an investor and mentor through the Sand Hill Angels Investment Group. He frequently consults as an expert witness for litigation cases involving software, hardware and systems analysis. After graduating from Stanford with a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering, Tom joined Silver-Lisco, a computer-aided engineering company. He managed a team that worked to commercialize new techniques originally developed within his Stanford thesis on “partitioning large digital designs”. He then became one of three Founders of Quickturn Systems, which developed the RPM Emulator Prototyping System. Cadence Design Systems Inc. acquired the company. Spectrum Analysis was his next venture where he was a Founder and Partner. Spectrum Analysis was initially focused on gallium arsenide vertical cavity laser based field programmable gate array development but evolved to provide consulting services based on a range of expertise in other software and design tools areas. Tom then founded Denali Software, participating in the development of memory modeling technology for simulation environments then serving on the Board of Directors until its acquisition. Denali Software was successfully sold to Cadence Design Systems Inc. in 2010 for a strong financial return.
Tom has many patents and publications.In addition to his professional interests he is a soaring pilot with substantial wave team flying experience with his brother and Perlan team member Jim Payne.