Episode 281: Rich Miner - Google Advisor & Android Co-Founder

Many entrepreneurs have aspirations to make an impact and change the world, which is admirable. However, building a company that impacts billions is obviously very hard and very rare. In the case of Rich Miner, his professional career has been very successful on several levels including the change the world category. As a co-founder of Wildfire, he was part of the team that built the world’s first digital assistant which also includes having his name on the patent for using words to wake up your voice based assistant - which is something that we are all familiar with via our Hey Google, Alexa, or Siri commands. Then, as a co-founder of Android, he helped revolutionize the smartphone industry with a product that has over 3 billion active users and what is now the most popular operating system in the world. Next, he disrupted the corporate venture fund industry by helping to launch Google Ventures (now known as GV) which is one of the top investors in the industry with billions of dollars under management. Last year was another accomplishment that will make an ongoing impact to students for years to come in the naming of the school that he graduated from which is the UMass Lowell Richard A. Miner School of Computer & Information Sciences. We obviously had a ton to cover over the course of this podcast, so stay tuned to hear lots of great stories about his background and all the companies he’s built, plus lots of great advice along the way. If you like the show, please remember to subscribe and review us on iTunes, Soundcloud, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play.