Rob Burgess

Robert Kenneth Burgess, known as Rob Burgess, was a Canadian technology executive who lived from 29 August 1957 to 21 December 2025. He grew up in Toronto and graduated from McMaster University in 1979. He worked at Silicon Graphics from 1984 to 1991, then ran the 3D software company Alias Research, which developed Maya, until Silicon Graphics bought it in 1995. He became chief executive and chairman of Macromedia in 1996 and held the post until Adobe Systems bought the company in 2005, a sale the article calls the fifth largest software acquisition at the time. Under him Macromedia moved from CD-ROM multimedia to internet authoring, and Flash became the worldwide standard. He then joined the Adobe board, serving until 2019, and sat on the board of NVIDIA from 2011. He died in Woodside, California.