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Biography
Dan Di Spaltro digitized his entrepreneurial parents’ mailing services company in 2001 as sophomore in high school, and his future was cast. He headed to Oregon State with his eyes set on computer science and his future imprinted by the university’s Open Source Lab.
“Oregon State’s open ethos drove my success professionally and personally,” says Di Spaltro. “It’s interesting how much impact an open culture can have on the planet. Incredible innovations are being made both in the business and academic world thanks to Open Source.” Di Spaltro started working at IBM after graduating, but he left the company and joined two other Oregon State graduates to develop the start-up Cloudkick, which focused on how the IT world managed and monitored servers in the Cloud. Rackspace Hosting, Inc. purchased their company in 2011 and Di Spaltro now runs its San Francisco office.
“Building a company from scratch is meaningful,” says Di Spaltro. “Since Cloudkick and Rackspace merged, we have added 2,000 employees around the world and created jobs leading to a lot of Beavers finding a home down in San Francisco.”