Nerdlife

Brian Krausz is a techie, entrepreneur, and all around fun guy (Disclaimer: I am Brian and may therefore be slightly biased).  More specifically, Brian is a 22-year-old from Long Island who has been in the world of technology for many years. He began at age 15, when he picked up his first part-time coding job: working on the website for an accounting firm. Though the job paid less than his job at Burger King, it was infinitely more rewarding. Rather than merely update the site’s pages as the firm asked, Brian saw an opportunity: he proceeded to create a CMS from scratch to allow the firm to update the content itself. Did Brian consider that he was coding himself out of a job? No, he just wanted to create something cool.

Through his teachers and coworkers Brian picked up more work, expanding his portfolio significantly, with everything ranging from sci-fi non-profits to consulting firms, Brian constantly aimed above the bar. When a client would ask for a site, Brian would build a system. He didn’t care about the money, for him the thrill was in the code, and the more challenging the better.

Going off to college meant many changes for Brian. Previously, his classes meant little to him, and he easily achieved above-average grades. Now, in one of the best computer science programs in the country, Brian had less time to run around working on small projects. Even going so far as starting a consulting firm to try and outsource his work while still remaining involved, Brian was unable to find a suitable replacement. Sadly and with much reluctance, Brian was forced to give up his work.

But Brian’s desire to code would soon be satisfied, as was offered a summer internship at Yahoo. There his programming skills were put to good use. He also had his first exposure to Silicon Valley, a place that he would quickly fall in love with. With a successful internship, Brian continued to work on a flexible part-time schedule for Yahoo.  He then left to explore other opportunities, interning at Mozilla the following year.  He then finished his last year of school and, graduating a year early with a B.S. in Computer Science and minor in Software Engineering, took a job with TripAdvisor in Boston.

After working for TripAdvisor for a year (a wonderful job with brilliant coworkers), Brian left to move to California and founded GazeHawk, which is currently in private Beta and will be launching publicly in Q3 2010.

Brian can be reached via email at briankrausz *AT* gmail.