Ruth Handler Club children's television show, Mattel invested heavily in television advertising. The TV commercials for the Barbie doll paid off and Barbie rocketed Mattel and the Handlers to fame and fortune. Subsequently, they would add a boyfriend for Barbie named Ken, after the Handlers' son, and many other "friends and family" to Barbie's world. Handler was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1970. She had a modified radical mastectomy, which was often used at the time to combat the disease, and because of difficulties in finding a good breast prosthesis, she decided to make her own. Handler went on to found a
Sheryl Handler tool with which to develop software programs for artificial intelligence. Handler helped found the Thinking Machines Corporation, where she served as CEO until 1992. After the Thinking Machines Corporation went bankrupt in 1995, Handler and several other former employees founded Ab Initio Software. Sheryl Handler Sheryl Handler is an American businesswoman recognized as one of the founders of Thinking Machines and is the founder and current CEO of Ab Initio. Handler attended Case Western Reserve University for interior design and received her master's degree in landscape architecture from Harvard University. Handler had previously participated in the start-up of the Genetics