Brian Hamachek

Brian Hamachek is a seasoned technologist, entrepreneur, and community-builder who wrote his first line of code at seven years old. Over the past two decades, he has built and scaled products that have reached hundreds of millions of users worldwide. He founded Nearby, one of the earliest location-based social networking apps, and grew it to over 13 million users. Earlier in his career, he was part of the founding teams at Coupons.com, StorSimple, and Portworx—all of which achieved successful exits, including acquisitions by Microsoft and Pure Storage. Deeply embedded in the Bay Area startup ecosystem, Brian collaborates with founders, investors, and civic leaders to build technology that strengthens real-world communities. As CTO of Vently, he’s focused on shaping the next generation of social experiences and designing products that allow technology to facilitate authentic human connections.