About

harper@modest.com

I’m a technologist that predicts the future for a living. I spend my life traveling around the world showing people the possibilities of tech and sharing my experiences to propel the greater good, all while raising the level of fun in the room.

I know my incredible luck has led me to achieve many wonderful things. At PayPal, my roles as Head of Commerce and as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence allowed me to guide teams into the thrilling future of e-commerce. The technology I developed as co-founder at startup Modest Inc. had initially garnered the attention of PayPal, which led them to acquire Modest only a few years after launch.

I also believe the talent of a great bunch of humans can transform an organization like nothing else and I use that belief to strengthen, deploy, and inspire every team I work with. Previously, I was CTO of the Obama 2012 campaign, where I was the first to bring the mentality and connective capabilities of tech to the political stage. I was also the CTO of Threadless.com, where I pioneered crowdsourcing and grew the company from a 12 person startup to a multi-million dollar enterprise. I’m an MIT Media Lab Director’s Fellow, sit on the advisory boards for IIT Computer Science and the Royal United Service Institute, and am on the Cornell College Board of Trustees.

I was most recently the CEO of General Galactic Corporation, a web3 company building software for the new internet. Galactic focused on creating rational crypto off-ramps for crypto workers and others who earn crypto. The company shut down in 2023.

In 2024, I founded 2389 Research Inc, a venture-backed AI company where I serve as CEO. 2389 Research is building multi-agent workflows that unlock new possibilities for intelligent automation.

You can find me hacking on personal projects and enjoying life in Chicago with my partner, Hiromi and our beautiful and bizarre poodle, Lulu.

In the Press

• "Conviction Collapse" and the End of Software as We Know It — O'Reilly Media, Apr 2026
• Which Workers Will A.I. Hurt Most: The Young or the Experienced? — New York Times, Jul 2025
• At Amazon, Some Coders Say Their Jobs Have Begun to Resemble Warehouse Work — New York Times, May 2025
• An interview about the 2024 election with Harper Reed, chief technology officer for Obama 2012 — Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Sep 2024
• Punk Techie Harper Reed Chats with Students — Susquehanna University, Nov 2020
• What Harper Reed Thinks: A Conversation With Obama’s Former CTO — Track Changes, Feb 2019
• Obama CTO says 'Big Data is BS' in keynote to hoteliers and vendors at HEDNA 2018 — tnooz, Feb 2018
• Your Amazon Order Could Get You in Trouble With Customs — RACKED, Jan 2018
• Harper Reed: Als Nerd im Dienst der Zukunft — Finanz und Wirtschaft, Mar 2017
• Nobody wants 'federation' of mobile messaging, says PayPal — Campaign, Mar 2017

Get in Touch

I’m available for speaking engagements. Details →