Technologist

Entrepreneur

Hacker

Hello.

I spend my life traveling the world, sharing my experiences and showing people the possibilities of tech. I believe a few things:

  • Thereโ€™s a beautiful and organized system hidden underneath what seems messy.
  • The talent of a great bunch of humans can transform an organization like nothing else.
  • Hope takes work. Itโ€™s not a feeling, but a behavior that you need to repeat in order to achieve what you want. I practice hope daily in myself and with others.
  • The world is magical. The future is exciting!
Obama for America Threadless Modest PayPal

I am available to speak at your conference and would love to participate. Feel free to book me or reach out for more information.

I am incredibly easy to contact. Just reach out. My email is harper@modest.com. I would love to get to know you and help with anything I can.

Otherwise, follow me on twitter (@harper), read my writing or contact me.

My life

I have always thought the best way to visualize someone's life is through a timeline. Here is my timeline:
Today

Started fourth vision quest / walkabout

๐Ÿ˜ฅ Galactic officially shuts down ๐Ÿ˜ฅ โ†’

๐Ÿ˜” Made the hard decision to shut Galactic down

Galactic launched the beta of skyteller.xyz โ†’

Galactic started focusing on crypto off-ramps

Accidentally launched Floppydisk.xyz โ†’

Started going to Chicago Bulls games regularly

Launched Galactic Camera โ†’

AMAZING THING HAPPENED

Published my “decentralized” website: https://harper.eth.link โ†’

Joined my first DAO โ†’

Convinced my brother, Dylan, he should start his own crypto company and follow his dreams! โ†’

Fake.sale got banned from opensea โ†’

Hacked together art.pizza โ†’

DOVE VERY DEEP INTO WEB3

Launched fake.sale, my first NFT project โ†’

Bought my first NFT โ†’

Got a peloton and started doing cardio more

Joined the RAND Pardee School Board of governors

Wrote up all my time doing covid work over the first 3/4 of 2020 โ†’

"Started" General Galactic Corporation โ†’

Found out I was a Jamstack Pioneer based on our work at Obama for America โ†’

Launched zooooom.us - a screensaver for our anxious times โ†’

Started doing COVID-19 work full-time

Started watching covid โ†’

Reclaimed modest.com and started using harper@modest.com for my email again โ†’

Joined the RAND Pardee School’s Tech & Narrative Lab advisory group โ†’

Opened the company.lol office to figure out what the next thing will be โ†’

Became a Senior Fellow at the Annenberg Innovation Lab at USC โ†’

Named as a 2019 delegate for the US-Japan Leadership Program โ†’

Became a MIT Medialab Director’s fellow โ†’

Started third vision quest / walkabout

Left PayPal to pursue my dreams

๐ŸŽ‚ Turned 40

๐Ÿง˜โ€โ™‚๏ธ Started doing yoga

Regretted spending all my bitcoin on things

Used up all my bitcoin buying Leica cameras on overstock

Joined IllinoisTech Computer Science advisory board

๐Ÿด๓ ก๓ ฆ๓ ท๓ ก๓ ฒ๓ ฟ Joined Royal United Service Institute advisory board

Installed a permanent rock monument in my parents front yard that is inscribed, “Boyhood home of Harper & Dylan Reed. The first astronauts to explore Uranus” โ†’

๐Ÿ  Started living at the house in Ukrainian Village

๐Ÿซ Joined Cornell College Board of Trustees

๐Ÿ“ธ Started carrying a camera everyday

๐Ÿ‘จโ€๐Ÿ’ป Started as Senior Director @ PayPal, inc

Sold Modest, Inc to PayPal

Was awarded 4 patents for work done on Modest, Inc

First time visiting South America (Santiago, Chile). Fifth continent outside of U.S. I visited.

๐Ÿ† Cornell College Young Alumni Achievement Award โ†’

๐Ÿ‹๏ธโ€ Started working out

๐Ÿฉ Adopted our wonderful puppy, Lulu

๐Ÿ  Started living at the condo in West Town

Became an honorary patron of the University Philosophical Society at Trinity College โ†’

First time visiting Africa (Johannesburg, South Africa). Fourth continent outside of U.S. I visited.

Wrapped my parents car in zebra stripes while they were on vacation โ†’

First time visiting Australia (Sydney, Australia). Third continent outside of U.S. I visited.

๐Ÿ† CTO of the Year @ Moxie Award

Installed ant miners in the Modest office

Launched FriendFracker with Rafeal Lozano-Hemmer at Seven on Seven. โ†’

๐Ÿ† Breakout of the Year @ Webby’s

Did a TED University talk at TED which predicted that the 2016 election would be hacked and manipulated โ†’

Started doing a lot of speaking internationally

๐Ÿ‘จโ€๐Ÿ’ผ Started a company called Modest, Inc with @dylanr

Started second vision quest / walkabout

Helped Barack Obama win his reelection campaign

๐Ÿ† 40 under 40 @ Crains

Stopped going out as much

๐Ÿ‘จโ€๐Ÿ’ป Started as the Chief Technology Officer at Obama for America

Bought a kindle for 45 bitcoin

Discovered Minecraft

๐Ÿ† Data Innovation Award @ MCIC

๐Ÿ  Started living at the apartment in Wicker Park

๐Ÿ‘จโ€๐Ÿ’ป Became the Customer in Residence for Rackspace Hosting

Started first vision quest / walkabout

Left Threadless to pursue my dreams

Built CityPayments.org with Daniel X Oneil

Built Unofficial Transit API for Chicago Transit Authority

Received a photo credit in Metallica’s Death Magnetic album. It should have gone to Derek Brooks. โ†’

๐Ÿ  Started living at the apartment in North Center

App Engine launched - learned python and launched Excla.im, Awesome Updater, and Chicago Alerts

๐ŸŽ‚ Turned 30

๐Ÿ’ Got married to Hiromi

๐Ÿ‘จโ€๐Ÿ’ป Became CTO of Threadless

๐Ÿ‘จโ€๐Ÿ’ป Started at Threadless as an engineer

Vox Paid for radio ads with my name in them: Step behind the velvet rope with Harper Reed.

๐Ÿ‘จโ€๐Ÿ’ป Started Working as a Summer Intern with Seth Godin @ Squidoo

Started a podcast about the club scene in chicago with my Vox Vodka sponsorship

Became a professional vodka drinker - Got a sponsorship by Vox Vodka

Got laid off. It was awesome!

๐Ÿ‘จโ€๐Ÿ’ป Started Working as a web programmer @ Cramer-Krasselt

First time visiting Asia (Delhi, India). Second continent outside of U.S. I visited.

๐ŸŽช Juggled on stage at the Metro for Chris Holmes’ Electroclash

๐ŸŽช Did a juggling show for Billy Corgan’s showcase at the Hideout

Stopped promoting parties in Chicago. I was terrible at it

Started promoting parties in Chicago.

Started my first “startup” - 3g Screensaver. Selling ringtones and wallpapers for phones

Started going out clubbing every night. Well M,T,W,F,S lol.

Sprint launches Samsung A500 and I launch a500hacking.com

๐Ÿ† Net Vision Honorary Mention @ PRIX ARS ELECTRONICA

Launched Audreyhacking.com to help hack the 3COM Audrey. โ†’

Hosted my first colocated server in a data center at OAR.net

Purchased my first server (A firesale VALinux 2U server)

Moved to Chicago, IL

๐ŸŽ“ Graduated from Cornell College with a degree in Computer Science and Philosophy

๐Ÿ  Started living at the apartment in Logan Square

๐Ÿ‘จโ€๐Ÿ’ป Started first job as a Security and Software Engineer @ World Book Publishing

๐Ÿ‘จโ€๐Ÿ’ป Started an internship @ MSI in Cedar Rapids, IA

๐ŸŽช Opened for Sir Mix-A-Lot as a juggler

๐ŸŽ‚ Turned 20

๐ŸŽช Juggled for the first time with @dylanreed

๐ŸŽช Learned to Juggle

๐Ÿซ Started going to Cornell College in Mt, Vernon, IA

Moved to Mt. Vernon, IA for college

๐Ÿ’ป Purchased my first laptop

Purchased my first domain name: nata2.org. Still used as my email address.

First time visiting Europe (Dublin, Ireland). First continent outside of U.S. I visited.

๐Ÿ‘ฎ The ATF visited and suggested I stop using BBSs and stop blowing things up. I did the latter.

Ran my first Apache server

๐Ÿซ Started going to Greeley Central High School

๐Ÿ  Started living at the house on 43rd ave in Greeley, CO

Started first band Faucet with Atkins Meyer, Karl Mahlburg and some friends.

๐ŸŽธ Started a terrible punk band called Faucet

๐Ÿ‚๏ธ Started snowboarding

Started subscribing to MONDO 2000 โ†’

๐Ÿซ Started going to Heath Junior High

Bought a Boing Boing and MONDO 2000 magazine at Powell’s in Portland. Changed everything.

Saw Public Enemy open for U2.

Ran up my first huge phone bill dialing into BBSes around the country. &TOTSE forever

Saw Metallica for the first time.

๐Ÿซ Started going to Maplewood Middle School

๐Ÿ–ฅ๏ธ Built a computer for the first time. Ram was so expensive so I could only afford 1mb.

Went to first concert, David Bowie.

๐Ÿ–ฅ๏ธ Got really into OS/2

๐ŸŽ‚ Turned 13

Was enamored by Roxanne Shante.

Bought Straight Outta Compton by N.W.A.

Stopped taking myself seriously

๐Ÿ–ฅ๏ธ Received an older IBM PS/2 model 25 for my birthday. My brother and I played a lot of kings quest.

Got Love and Rockets’ Earth, Sun, Moon for my birthday.

Programmed BASIC based on code from the 321 Contact magazine

๐ŸŽ’ Started going to Cameron Elementary School

Accidently got Killers by Iron Maiden. Changed everything.

๐Ÿ–ฅ๏ธ Family got a Apple IIc. My brother and I set it up.

Learned to code LOGO on an Apple II

๐Ÿ  Started living at the house on 11th st in Greeley, CO

๐Ÿ”ฅ House caught on fire and burnt a bunch. LEGOs survived

๐Ÿ  Started living at the house on 27th ave in Greeley, CO

Television broke. Never got fixed

๐Ÿ  Started living at the house near the hospital in Greeley, CO

๐Ÿ‘ถ Brother @dylanreed was born. The Reed Brothers are finally united.

๐Ÿ  Started living at the farm house on rd 15 in Greeley, CO

๐Ÿ‘ถ Secret Brother Jon was born. The Reed Brothers are almost united.

๐Ÿ  Started living at the house on 11th st in Greeley, CO

Moved to Greeley, CO

๐Ÿ  Started living at the house in Windsor, CO

๐Ÿ‘ถ Harper was born in Greeley, CO