Born in
Salt Lake City, Utah, Ashton began his work in
computer science at the
University of Utah, studying computing and music in the early 1970s. In 1977, Ashton began work on word processing when he created a specification for an improved console-based
word processor. His specifications outlined various innovations at the time, including continuous documents, function key shortcuts, modeless editing, and primitive
WYSIWYG formatting. Ashton and his student
Bruce Bastian incorporated
Satellite Software International in September 1979, which later became the WordPerfect Corporation. In 1987, Ashton left BYU to serve full-time as president and
chief executive officer of WordPerfect Corporation. Ashton, Bastian, and W. E. "Pete" Peterson ran WordPerfect as a triumvirate; Ashton and Bastian each controlled 49.5% of the company, and Peterson controlled 1%. While Ashton was the titular head of WordPerfect, Peterson ran the day-to-day operations, and was frequently misinterpreted as the head of the company by the press. Ashton's management style was hands-off. For a time, the entire development organization of WordPerfect reported directly to him. In 1990, Ashton was identified by
Forbes magazine as one of the 400 wealthiest individuals in the United States. When
Novell bought WordPerfect Corp. in 1994, Ashton and Bastian each received almost $700 million in Novell stock. Ashton joined the Novell Corporation's Board of Directors in 1994, and resigned in 1996. Ashton is unrelated to
Ashton-Tate, a database company that was a contemporary of WordPerfect in the 1980s. In April 1999, Ashton founded ASH Capital, a venture investment company controlled by Ashton and managed by James Savas and David Harkness. ==Thanksgiving Point==