The OS for the Open Metaverse

John Payne is the Chairman and CEO of Croquet, and a member of its Board of Directors. He also serves as Executive Chairman of GIGXR, Inc., an early stage extended reality (XR) medical training business serving medical and nursing schools, hospitals, higher education and the U.S. Department of Defense. Mr. Payne has significant public company executive experience as the former CEO of two public Internet software companies, Stamps.com (STMP), where he also served as Chairman, and Day Software (SW: DAYN). While at Stamps, he led the development of its operating business, its $65 million IPO and a $365 million secondary offering co-managed by Goldman Sachs and Salomon Smith Barney.

He served as Chairman and CEO of SimpleAir, Inc., a technology licensing company, from 2004 to 2020. Mr. Payne is an Inventor who has been awarded more than 20 patents by the USPTO covering Internet, cybersecurity and digital mail plus wireless technologies which are widely licensed across the smartphone industry. Mr. Payne holds a B.A. in Economics from University of California, Irvine. He started life as a Wilderness Ranger for the US Forest Service working on foot, horseback and skis. In a post COVID world, he splits his time between Laguna Beach, CA and Boise, ID.

David A. Smith is the Founder and CTO of Croquet and a member of its Board of Directors. He has more than 30 years of experience as a pioneer of AR and VR, and has founded 7 companies, including The Colony, the world’s first 3D adventure/shooter game, and Virtus Corporation, the first real-time 3D PC design tool, in addition to creating the visualization software behind James Cameron’s “The Abyss”. He has sold 10’s of millions of games and applications.

Early in his career, he was co-founder of Red Storm Entertainment with Tom Clancy and Brian Upton. He was also Chairman of Gensym, the first large-scale public AI company, and most recently was Chief Innovation Officer & Senior Fellow at Lockheed Martin, leading their AR and VR efforts. He invented 3D portals and co-invented the core tech behind Croquet. He has been issued 32 patents in 3D, AR, VR and AI by the US Patent and Trademark Office, and holds a BS in Mathematics from University of Chicago.

Brian is a 20-year veteran of the game industry. He was one of the founders of Red Storm Entertainment where he designed the original Rainbow Six and Ghost Recon. He spent fifteen years as a senior designer at PlayStation, guiding external teams through every stage of production, including innovative indie titles such as Fat Princess, Warhawk, Sorcery, Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture, Bound, and Here They Lie. Brian is the author of the books The Aesthetic of Play and Situational Game Design.

**Vanessa Freudenberg**
Chief Architect, Co-founder

Vanessa designed Croquet’s client/server architecture, and implemented its client framework as well as the networking protocol and global Edge Reflector infrastructure. A former member of Alan Kay’s research group, she has been developing interactive systems for more than 20 years with a focus on live, self-supporting architectures (including Squeak Etoys, Scratch, Lively, Frank, and even a revival of Smalltalk-78). Vanessa’s PhD was awarded for new real-time non-photorealistic 3D rendering techniques.

While he was attending the graduate school of Tokyo Institute of Technology, Yoshiki joined Walt Disney Imagineering R&D in 2000 as an intern and helped developing prototypes of Disney’s theme park attractions. He also has been involved in Alan Kay’s research group, and participated in the research and development effort of education programming environment Squeak Etoys and later took the leading role. Yoshiki has worked at the Viewpoints Research Institute, SAP Labs CDG, and Y Combinator Research, all of which Dr. Kay founded or helped found. He was awarded his PhD. for designing and implementing a massively parallel particle programming system from Tokyo Institute of Technology.

**Yoshiki Ohshima**
Chief Scientist, Co-founder

**Aran Lunzer**
System Visioneer, Co-founder

Aran is another Co-founder who transferred from Alan Kay’s former research group, having started working with David Smith in 2017 on bringing Croquet into the JavaScript world. Aran’s background includes 20 years of interaction research, focusing on his concept of "subjunctive interfaces": information interfaces designed to inform users about the context surrounding a computed result by hinting at alternative results from nearby, subtly different computations. He is always on the lookout for ways to stir those ideas into the Croquet ecosystem.

Jenn is a Transylvanian Ui UX developer living in Vancouver, Canada. Her early career began in fine art but merged with her love for technology - migrated into a career in UX. Jenn’s work was recently featured in multiple globally published magazines and large scale signage designs that can be viewed around downtown Vancouver. At Croquet, Jenn works at enhancing the overall user experience for seamless integration and interactions.

**Zach Fox**
Developer Relations Engineer

Zach is a software engineer, photographer, and friend you haven't yet met. He values learning, his freedom of expression, and vulnerable conversation. Having grown up with the Internet, Zach deeply understands the way modern Web technologies can help authentically connect people from across the world.

Lucas is a creative software engineer, systems humanist, and craftsman futurist. Lucas has previously worked on realtime 3D apps, XR-enabled applications, and networking. Lucas is focused on displaying the team's excellent work in the best light by designing and building applications that directly demonstrate Croquet's powerful interactive, live, and collaborative environment. At any odd hour of the day, he enjoys gaming, exploring music, and mountain biking.

The Croquet Team