Agoric is an open-source development company launching an interoperable Proof-of-Stake chain and economy. Our JavaScript-native smart contract platform offers developers a safe, reusable library of DeFi components to rapidly build and deploy on-chain.
The team includes experts with proven success bringing disruptive technologies and products to market.
Mark S. Miller is a pioneer of Agoric (market-based secure distributed) computing and smart contracts, the main designer of the E and Dr. SES distributed persistent object-capability programming languages, inventor of Miller Columns, an architect of the Xanadu hypertext publishing system, a representative to the EcmaScript committee, a former Google research scientist, and a senior fellow of the Foresight Institute.
Dean Tribble co-designed the negotiation process and contract for the first smart contracting system, AMiX. As a Principal Architect at Microsoft, he co-designed the Midori distributed object-capability operating system. As founder and CTO for Agorics (acquired by Microsoft), he architected the brokerage information system for Schwab’s active traders and the WebMart electronic contract system for SunLabs. As CTO of VerifyValid and VP of Deluxe, his echeck systems have carried billions of dollars.
Michael is a proven industry disruptor. In his 25+ years of strategic leadership, he has leveraged disruptive technologies, (IP, VoIP, Smart Home) to both drive monumental change and unleash brand new business opportunities. At Spectrum (formerly Time Warner Cable), as VP of Product and Strategy he launched and led the growth of Digital Phone to over 4M subscribers and $2B in annual revenue. Off the clock, Michael is literally a wanderer, usually traveling sans map or solid plan.
Bill Tulloh was a market manager at smart contract pioneer AMiX, was co-founder of the Agorics Project on markets and computation, and was a lead researcher of the Virus Safe Computing project both at George Mason University. He has served as a product manager and director of business development at various software companies.
Brian Warner built Foolscap, a Python-based distributed object-capability system. He created Buildbot, a popular continuous-integration system, co-founded the Tahoe-LAFS capability-based secure distributed storage system, and co-authored the prescient security review of Ethereum. At Mozilla, Brian developed a framework for reviewing modular browser add-ons, co-developed Firefox Sync, and led the security design of the Firefox Accounts login system.
Chris is a software engineer who has worked on email security, financial cryptography, S/W development tools, highly social mobile games, and privacy. He wrote Zocalo, an open source platform for Prediction Markets. He has worked at Xerox PARC, Digital Equipment, Google, and several small companies. On his own time, he reads science fiction, plays volleyball, and is a rock climber.
Michael is a generalist software developer and system administrator with 25 years of experience who enjoys the challenges of working with diverse technologies at all layers of the computing platform. He has a background in free software, embedded systems, operating systems, language virtual machines, full-stack development, and network security. Notably, Michael has worked as a developer for the Free Software Foundation and a system administrator for Google. When not on the computer, he spends time with his daughters, plays the accordion, and enjoys good food.
Kris Kowal introduced the JS community to asynchronous promises with the popular Q library and is the author of the CommonJS module system popularized by Node.js and NPM. Kris built infrastructure at Uber for five years. On nights and weekends, Kris is a Middle-earth cartographer, Elvish calligrapher, OpenMoji contributor, interactive fiction creator, cellular automaton curator, and a hiking camper.
Chip Morningstar led software development for AMiX, including implementing its smart contracting system. He is a pioneer in virtual worlds and online games, designing and leading the creation of Lucasfilm's Habitat, the first MMO, for which, among other things, he coined the term "Avatar" in its modern usage. He co-founded Electric Communities where he was one of the implementors of the E programming language and many other technical precursors to Agoric's approach to distributed systems. He is the co-creator of the JSON data interchange format and current editor of the Ecma/ISO JSON standard. He is also an avid photographer and model railroader.
Nick is a seasoned engineering leader with deep technical experience and a proven track record of delivering business-transformative solutions. At Uber Technologies, he was the Head of Reliability Platform, which included Uber's large scale Observability stack. Prior to that, Nick built trading, reference data, and access control systems at Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America Global Markets, and Iris Financial Engineering.
Dan is a distinguished software engineer and instrumental in developing numerous industry standards that drove the Internet’s evolution. Working alongside Tim Berners-Lee at the IETF and Web Consortium, Dan’s roles include work as editor and working group chair of HTML, HTTP, and URL specifications. As a research scientist at MIT, he led semantic web efforts (RDF, OWL, SPARQL) and published formal systems research in venues such as the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence. Dan has worked as a software developer at startups to large institutions and led research and large-scale data integration efforts. Outside of work, he enjoys time with family, hitting the trail with his dog, and playing guitar with friends.
Jim Larson comes to Agoric after 13 years at Google where he primarily worked on Megastore, Google's first planet-scale database that provided fault-tolerant, scalable storage for Gmail, App Engine, and other properties. Before that he developed the replication architecture for Amazon SimpleDB, AWS's first No-SQL database. He brings diverse experience ranging from telemetry and navigation software for deep space probes at JPL, bioinformatics, and large-scale email and mobile messaging platforms. He enjoys running and rock climbing. He has Masters degrees in Mathematics and Computer Science.
Mathieu is a software engineer, passionate about pushing the boundaries of what can be built using web technologies, from low level JavaScript features to front-end APIs. At Stripe, he improved the security, reliability, and performance of their browser Payments SDK. At Citrix, he spearheaded the creation of browser-based collaboration experiences, from prototyping early GoToMeeting web clients to designing the underlying communication protocols. On his own time, he enjoys cooking, solving distributed garbage collection, and riding his mountain bike.
As Director of Strategic Growth at Ripple, Vanessa built a significant investment portfolio of tech companies with novel use cases in protocol development, ecosystem tools, and smart contracts. She previously consulted on fintech and government projects and has advised brands such as Chobani and eBay on their accelerator programs. Vanessa actively advocates for workplace diversity and the advancement of women and Latinos. After being stranded in Barbados with her husband and two kids during Covid quarantine, she is now a New Jersey resident.
Rowland Graus is a highly accomplished startup software company product leader. He has launched multiple enterprise products driving the growth of millions in revenue. Rowland began his career in private equity, where he led research projects resulting in billions in acquisition value. Rowland is obsessed with defi products and is probably farming yours right now. Rowland earned his BA in Economics from the University of Virginia and an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management.
Santiago is an expert blockchain and smart contract growth marketer. He was previously at Hype Partners, a Berlin-based blockchain project marketing company. There, he worked on numerous initiatives to launch global developer programs and execute successful funding rounds (ICO & Private). He co-ran the international OFFDevcon blockchain conferences in Prague and Osaka. On the side, you will find Santiago surfing Product Hunt or writing for UI/UX publications. He has a BFA, and MFA in Art, Design, and Media.
Tatyana assists Agoric’s operations, developer relations, and community work. She has international expertise in communications, trade policies and human rights law. Tatyana received her MS degree in International Relations from the Free University of Brussels in Belgium. Previously she worked at the EU parliament in Brussels, financial services in London, and Autodesk in California. In her spare time she enjoys making independent films, climbing mountains and stage acting.
Sam is an experienced full stack developer with prior experience earned while working at Shopify, Amazon Lab126, and most recently Google where he spent 3 years building core front-end frameworks and components. He graduated from the University at Buffalo with degrees in math and computer science. Apart from crypto and programming, his interests include gaming, getting lost in the woods, health and fitness.
Jeet worked previously as the Academic Partnerships and Educational Programming Manager for the Chicago Blockchain Project. He is also a Gitcoin KERNEL fellow. Jeet worked as an instructional designer at General Assembly, creating courses focused on web development and data. Jeet previously co-founded Behold.ai, an AI diagnostics company. He was also an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the NYU Steinhardt EdTech Accelerator. Jeet holds a Bachelor’s degree in Cognitive Psychology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a Master’s degree in Instructional Technology and Media from Columbia University. In his free time, he likes to mentor rising entrepreneurs and find new ramen restaurants in New York City.
During her time as Director of Security at Tendermint, Jessy was responsible for creating programs that set industry standards in incentivized testnet programs, product security assessments, incident response, and coordinated vulnerability disclosure across the Cosmos Network. As a leader in her field, she is known for developing comprehensive, human-centric security programs, and she believes that everyone within a blockchain community is a member of the security team. In her spare time, she enjoys chasing after her dogs, exploring the California coastline, and reading about archaeology, espionage, art crime, and history.
Turadg is a software engineer driven by social impact. The past 25 years he has worked in education technology, from research labs at UC Berkeley and Carnegie Mellon University to high growth startups Coursera and Quizlet. He has published in IEEE and presented at CHI, CSCL, and EDM. As a software engineer he enjoys open source and improving developer experiences, beginning in 1999 making php-mode for Emacs and more recently leading product architecture at Quizlet. He holds a PhD in Human Computer Interaction. When not at the computer, he enjoys walking with his wife and daughter, learning about human nature, and dabbling with bass guitar.
Richard Gibson was principal architect of the Managed DNS service and other robust distributed internet systems at Dyn and Oracle, and author of internal and external consistency guidance at both organizations. He has been a frequent contributor to and occasional maintainer of open source projects across GitHub since first getting involved with jQuery in 2011 and ECMA TC39 a few years later. Richard lives with his family in New Hampshire on purpose, where he can frequently be seen running over hill and dale all year long.
Ari is a seasoned security engineer who specializes in Product Security and risk reduction in complex systems. At Apple, Ari was a security leader on the Security Engineering & Architecture team working on technologies including advanced detection, secure design, and data protection. Prior to Apple, Ari built the Product Security team at Slack, pioneered self-directed agile risk assessment at Heroku, and founded the Red Team for offensive penetration testing at Salesforce. When not diagramming and threat modeling, Ari spends his spare time with his dogs and fish.
Natali’s career began as an operator for commodity giant - Glencore, where she quickly learned the Aluminum business and managed accounts across the Americas. From there, she went on to gain experience in emerging startups in the advertisement space and, most recently, Crypto. Natali received her B.S. from the Barney School of Business at the University of Hartford with a focus on marketing and a minor in finance. In her spare time, Natali takes online courses to strengthen her knowledge of blockchain in business.
