Event Materials for Harper Reed

Technical Requirements

Here are high level technical requirements. Please email if you have any questions.

  • Harper will use the show computer
  • Clicker with go both back and forth and have direct control of the presentation
  • Harper does not require a podium and prefers a clear stage
  • A bottle of water on stage and in the backstage/green room area
  • Harper prefers 16:9 aspect ratio for the presentation
  • A hand-held microphone

Short Bio of Harper

Harper Reed is a technologist that predicts the future for a living. He spends most of his life building big things, hacking things, and talking about doing both of those things. As CTO of the Obama 2012 campaign, Harper was the first to bring the tech mentality to a political level. He believes the talent of a great bunch of humans can transform an organization like nothing else and uses that belief to strengthen, deploy, and inspire every team he works with. Harper also believes his incredible luck has led him to achieve wonderful things like pioneering crowdsourcing at Threadless.com, founding Modest Inc, and guiding the software team at PayPal. His most recent venture was General Galactic Corporation, which he shut down in 2023. You can find Harper hacking on personal projects and enjoying life in Chicago with his partner, Hiromi and their beautiful and bizarre poodle, Lulu.

Long Bio of Harper

Harper Reed is a technologist that predicts the future for a living. He spends his life traveling around the world showing people the possibilities of tech and sharing his experiences to propel the greater good, all while raising the level of fun in the room.

Harper knows his incredible luck has led him to achieve many wonderful things. At PayPal, his roles as Head of Commerce and as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence allowed him to guide teams into the thrilling future of e-commerce. The technology he 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.

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

Harper was recently the CEO of General Galactic Corporation where he led an amazing team. Galactic was a web3 company building software for the new internet. Galactic focused on building rational crypto offramps for crypto workers, and others who earn crypto. We shut down Galactic in 2023.

You can find Harper hacking on personal projects and enjoying life in Chicago with his partner, Hiromi and their beautiful and bizarre poodle, Lulu.

Bio available in Chinese, Japanese and other languages on request.

Name and title

I prefer the following representations of my name and title:

  • Harper Reed, Hacker and Entrepreneur
  • Harper Reed, Hacker
  • Harper Reed, Entrepreneur
  • Harper Reed, Former CEO Galactic, Inc
  • Harper Reed, Former CEO Modest, Inc
  • Harper Reed, Former CTO Obama for America

High Resolution Photos of Harper Reed

A selection of high-resolution photos of Harper. Please contact the linked rights holder for usage.

If you have any further questions, contact speaking@harperreed.com