Advertisement

What's in a Name: WayForward Technologies


With its gorgeous A Boy and His Blob remake in the pipeline, WayForward has been on our minds quite a lot recently. Unfortunately, we didn't have the answer to the real question: How did the company come up with its name? Our curiosity is now sated.


"Back when we started in 1990, I happened to be reading a Douglas Adams book called Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency. One of the lead characters in it is Gordon Way, who not only shares my surname, but also developed MIDI software for Windows, which happened to be a hobby of mine at the time. I decided to name my company after his partly as a tribute to my favorite author and partly because it was too weird a coincidence to pass up.


"Five years later, the parallels continued when we were acquired by a company that subsequently spun us off. We effectively started over from scratch. Gordon Way's company was actually called WayForward Technologies II for similar reasons.


"Honestly, I'm hoping the similarities end there, because Gordon Way ends up getting murdered."


–Voldi Way, founder of WayForward


Liked this story? Be sure to check out the What's In A Name archives.