Anthony da Silva (left) and Daniel Teixeira, Pure Storage

Flash memory was invented by Fujio Masuoka while he was employed at Toshiba in the early 1980s. As the story goes, a colleague, Shoji Ariizumi, coined the term “flash” because the procedure of erasing all data from a chip reminded him of the flash of a camera. Masuoka was trying to find a better method of storage other than tape, DRAM or floppy disks and was said to be particularly interested in nonvolatile memory that can retain information when the power is switched off.

It would take many decades before flash became mainstream and it’s now an essential technology for the enterprise. Masuoka, for his part, was paid a couple of hundred dollars by Toshiba for his invention, and the company, apparently, also tried to demote him.