We recently interviewed Aaron Kelly who’s the Director of Product Management for SolidWorks at 3DExperience World (formerly SolidWorks World) in Nashville, TN. SolidWorks Corporation was founded in December 1993 by MIT graduate Jon Hirschtick. Hirschtick recruited a team of engineers with the goal of building 3D CAD software that was easy-to-use, affordable, and available on the Windows desktop. SolidWorks released its first product SolidWorks 95, in November 1995. In 1997 Dassault Systemes acquired SolidWorks for $310 million in stock.
Jeff Rowe: Joining me this afternoon is an old friend, Aaron Kelly, who’s the Director of Product Management for SolidWorks.
Aaron Kelly: Jeff, it’s great to see you because we’ve known each other for a long time.
JR: And can you discuss how your role has evolved at SolidWorks and what your role is today?
AK: As you know I started SolidWorks back in 1996 and at that time it was about migrating people from 2D to 3D; That was kind of the emphasis there. 3D was new, 3D was disruptive at that point so if we fast forward let’s say 25 years, everybody has 3D now.
