Dan Shapiro

CEO, Robot Turtles, LLC

Seattle

Dan Shapiro is the CEO and primary turtle wrangler at Robot Turtles, LLC, a company created when he accidentally launched the best-selling boardgame in Kickstarter history. Prior to Robot Turtles, he led a Google subsidiary that operates comparison shopping products. Dan landed at Google when they bought his previous company, Sparkbuy Inc, where he was founder and CEO.

Before Sparkbuy, Dan was founder and CEO of Ontela, a pioneering mobile imaging company, where he was named CEO of the Year by MobileBeat. Ontela is now a part of Photobucket Inc.

Prior to founding Ontela, Dan managed development of the RealArcade service at RealNetworks, enabling thousands of end-users to play classic games such as Monopoly, Scrabble and Rollercoaster Tycoon on their desktops. He arrived at RealNetworks by way of Wildseed, where he managed software development for the Identity Cellular Phone. Dan started his career at Microsoft working on Windows 98, Windows 2000, and Windows XP.

Dan's articles have been published in the Washington Post, Wireless Week, and the Seattle PI, and he is a frequent speaker at conferences and events. He serves on the board of the Washington Technology Industry Association. He is a mentor for the Founder's Institute, 500 Startups, and Techstars. He has been awarded eleven US patents, and received his B.S. in Engineering from Harvey Mudd College.