Editing Ben Chiu (section)

== Career ==

In 1994 while the Internet was still in its infancy, Ben moved to Fremont, California to help manage his father's publishing business--Pan Asian Publications. While buying computer hardware for the company, he discovered it was tedious to browse through thousands of magazine listings for the best deals.

Instead, he cut the spines off publications like Computer Shopper and PC Magazine and keyed all the specs and prices into a database, page after page, one page at a time. After e-commerce sites began to appear on the Internet, Ben developed a web crawler that would automatically gather and update prices around the clock. This was to form the foundation for his new company.

Ben formally incorporated KillerApp, Corp. in 1995 and went on to pioneer the concept of online comparison shopping (also known as the price engine). This paradigm shift proved devastating to the computer publication industry. "Print" simply could not compete with the timely content and convenience of these specialized search engines.

The web crawlers at KillerApp ran 24/7, updating 1.5 million prices daily. Within two years, killerapp.com was receiving 14 million page views per month and 1/2 million monthly users. The site was also generating 150,000 leads per month for its base of 360 merchants.

In order to sustain the growth of its business, Ben raised two rounds of funding from angel investors that included: C.S. Ho (founder of Mitac/Synnex and honorary chairman of Computex); Charlene Wang (president of FIC and daughter of tycoon Y.C. Wang); Ming Chien (chairman of FIC) and Cher Wang (chairperson of VIA Technologies and daughter of Y.C. Wang).

In 1998, Ziff-Davis approached Ben with a buy-out offer. He declined but instead brought in Deutsche Bank to produce competitive bids. A long M&A roadshow ensued. Ben held due diligence discussions with Microsoft, ZDNet, Yahoo!, CNET, Excite, Lycos and Inktomi. On March 23, 1999 he sold his company to CNET in a stock swap valued at USD 54 million and joined CNET as the Director of Commerce Services.