Danny Hillis, Chairman
Danny Hillis is Co-founder of Applied Minds, where he currently serves as Chairman and Chief Technology Officer. He is one of the great spirits of modern engineering, an inventor and scientist who revolutionized the computing industry. Previously Danny was Vice President, Research and Development at Walt Disney Imagineering, and a Disney Fellow. While at Disney, he developed new technologies and business strategies for Disney's theme parks, television, motion pictures, Internet and consumer products businesses. As Co-founder of Thinking Machines, Danny was a pioneer in the development of parallel computers, now the basis for most supercomputers, as well as the RAID disk array technology used to store large databases. He holds over 80 U.S. patents and is the author of The Pattern On The Stone: The Simple Ideas That Make Computers Work. Danny is Co-chair of The Long Now Foundation, and also the designer of a 10,000-year mechanical clock.
Danny is a graduate of MIT, where he earned a BS in Mathematics and an MS and PhD in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS).
Thomas Layton, CEO
Thomas Layton came to Metaweb from OpenTable, where he served as CEO from 2001 to June 2007. Previously, he was a co-founder of CitySearch, Inc., which later merged with Ticketmaster and is now a subsidiary of USA Networks. Prior to his experience at Ticketmaster-CitySearch, Thomas was with Score Learning Corporation, a leading educational services company, where he served first as Chief Financial Officer and later as President and Chief Operating Officer. From 1986 to 1988, Thomas was an Associate Consultant with the Boston Consulting Group.
Thomas holds an MBA from the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University and a BS from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Kevin Harvey, General Partner, Benchmark Capital
Kevin Harvey is a General Partner at Benchmark Capital and a seasoned entrepreneur with a long track record of developing innovative technologies into successful enterprises. Prior to Benchmark, Kevin was founder, President and CEO of Approach Software where he led the development of the world's first end-user client/server database for Windows. Approach Software was purchased by Lotus Development in 1993. Before founding Approach Software, Kevin founded Styleware and pioneered integrated software for the Apple II personal computer. Styleware was purchased by Claris Corporation where Kevin's team went on to create ClarisWorks, one of the best-selling software programs for the Macintosh.
Kevin received his BSEE degree from Rice University.
Daniel Abrutyn, President, Applied Minds
Daniel Abrutyn is the President of Applied Minds, Inc., a research and development company that invents, designs and prototypes high technology products and systems. Previously, Dan was the Operating Partner at BV Capital (an Internet, media and communications focused venture capital fund), CFO/COO of Allbusiness.com (a small business portal), and President of 1stUp.com (an Internet service provider owned by CMGi, Inc). Dan began his career as an investment banker at Lazard Frères & Co. where he specialized in corporate finance and mergers and acquisitions. He currently serves on the board of directors of Applied Proteomics, Metaweb Technologies, PeoplePoint Systems, and TouchTable.
He is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania.
