New York, New York, United States
Currently doing some independent AI research and experimentation. Hands-on software engineering team leader. Been building secure, scalable, high quality infrastructure around AI, fintech, and blockchains since before it was cool... and also after it was cool. Employee #2 at Gemini Trust Company, wrote much of the early code, and grew the engineering team from 1 to over 100 people. Then at NEAR AI, built confidential AI and inter-agent protocols.
- Scout helps schools pay their athletes and manage their student athlete contracts and budgets. - Scout helps college athletes get paid, and provides financial education, wealth management, and tax preparation.
NEAR AI is a startup incubator and research lab for "user-owned" AI (i.e. where your usage isn't controlled by the Big Three AI companies). We make confidential, fully-encrypted AI tools like NEAR AI Cloud, NEAR Private Chat, and IronClaw (encrypted OpenClaw). As CTO, I was the technical oversight and management for the whole eng team, and specifically focused on our (stealth) consumer products. My time there ended when we moved from fully-remote to onsite in SF.
From 2020 to 2024, Pagoda was the core engineering arm of the NEAR Protocol ecosystem. We built and operated dozens of key products & services, and spun out new organizations like NEAR One (for core protocol development), Aurora, Calimero, Sig Network, and NEAR DevHub. After all those spinouts, the NEAR Foundation decided to switch to an open bidding process for operating the remaining core NEAR services, and Pagoda wound down in February 2025.
Nifty Gateway is a subsidiary of Gemini. I managed and advised the team after it was acquired by Gemini in June 2019, and joined as full-time CTO in February 2021. Nifty Gateway is the premier platform & marketplace for digital art and other NFTs. It's just as friendly to blockchain newbies as it is to crypto experts, offering USD pricing, credit card payments, and a download-free custodial wallet. That makes Nifty Gateway perfectly suited to enterprises looking for an NFT loyalty or ticketing platform!
Gemini is the world's first fully regulated cryptocurrency exchange and custodian. I joined as the first software engineer at the company, wrote much of the original codebase, and grew the engineering team over the next six years to over 100 people across four offices. I worked on technology direction and architecture, company strategy, engineering team management, recruiting, and occasionally found time to open a PR or two.