[ijpoijpoihpiuoh]

"Unknown" is not an insult. It's not rude. It just means that he was not prominent before this company. It's actually somewhat of a compliment, because you generally expect gradual rises in fame and performance, not meteoric ones. So to say "unknown X does great thing Y" is more complimentary to X than saying "X does great thing Y".

[mistrial9]

whose definition of 'prominent' ? many, many assumptions there

[coldtea]

You could say that for any word. The common people's definition of prominent. In the sense that he wasn't that known in the tech world and not a household item in the business industry either.

[ijpoijpoihpiuoh]

I am simply observing the general meaning of unknown in the context of statements like this in the English language. I suspected that the person I was replying to might be unaware of this meaning based on their reaction, and was trying to clarify. I really don't think there are many assumptions here. This is by far the most common interpretation of unknown in sentences like this.