From PC EXPO to CloudEXPO

I hired Grisha Davida in 1998 as President of SYS-CON Events.

By then, Grisha was already a legend in the technology conference world — one of the rare executives whose career bridged the early personal-computer era and the modern enterprise-tech boom.

His reputation had been built long before I met him.

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In 1984, Grisha became the founding president of PC EXPO, working with the show’s owner, Ralph Ianuzzi, Sr. Years later, I would discover that his son, Ralph Jr., lived just a few doors from me in Upper Saddle River, New Jersey — one of those small-world coincidences that kept repeating throughout my life.

The personal computer industry was exploding, and PC EXPO quickly became one of the most important technology trade shows in the United States.

Before the Javits Center became its home, PC EXPO was held at the New York Coliseum. There, it brought together volume buyers and sellers of computer hardware, software, and services.

It helped define what a modern technology conference could be — not just booths and brochures, but an ecosystem where an industry learned how to gather.

Grisha played a central role in the show’s early growth. Even decades later, historical references and retrospectives still credit him as PC EXPO’s founding president.

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After PC EXPO, Grisha came on to build SYS-CON Events with me in the mid-1990s.

Together, we created a conference company focused on emerging technologies.

Under his leadership, we launched dozens of events. Over time, those efforts culminated in CloudEXPO, which debuted in 2008 and went on to become one of the world’s largest cloud computing conferences.

In promotional materials, CloudEXPO is sometimes loosely dated to earlier years, reflecting precursor events and the long evolution of the brand.

But its impact became undeniable in the late 2000s, when cloud computing moved from theory into real infrastructure.

Grisha remained actively involved for decades, continuing to appear in CloudEXPO leadership roles and public promotions well into the 2020s.

His career uniquely connected two eras:

the formative years of personal computing

and the rise of cloud and enterprise technology

Few people in the industry could claim both.

Inside SYS-CON, Grisha became the executive backbone of our events business — the steady hand behind our growth as we scaled faster than any of us imagined.

There was one irony I never missed.

When Grisha launched PC EXPO in 1984 — the same year I arrived in the United States — I used to attend the show simply to collect free swag and T-shirts. Enough to last me the entire year.

Years later, I would be running conferences of my own.

And the man who once ran the show I walked into as a broke immigrant would become my president.

At one of our shows at the Javits Center, Grisha introduced me to a short, chubby man named Shelly.

We spotted him roaming the expo floor, walking booth to booth, handing out business cards and asking companies to attend his event in Las Vegas.

That man was Sheldon Adelson.

At the time, he was just another promoter hustling the floor.

But his Las Vegas event would soon become COMDEX — short for Computer Dealers Expo — one of the most influential trade shows in the history of the personal computer industry.

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COMDEX quickly became the centerpiece of the tech calendar.

By the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s, Fall COMDEX in Las Vegas grew into the world’s largest trade show, often drawing more than 200,000 attendees at its peak.

Product launches happened there.

Partnerships were formed there.

Entire sectors of the computing industry were shaped on that floor.

Adelson and his partners later sold The Interface Group — including COMDEX and its related shows — to Japan’s SoftBank Corporation, led by Masayoshi Son, for approximately $862 to $890 million.

Adelson’s personal share was reportedly well over $500 million.

I met him when he was still walking booth to booth with business cards in his hand.

* * *

That’s how this industry worked back then.

Everyone started on the floor.

Everyone I met at the top, I first saw walking the floor.