HubPages was founded in 2006 by two Pauls and a Jay. Based in San Francisco, we’re backed by Hummer Winblad and Storm Ventures. Just a few short years and 21 employees later, we’ve managed to become one of the biggest websites around (the world, that is).
Meet the HubPages Team. We are real people with real passions. We’re an open book. We love sharing what we know and what we do. And learning from each other. Especially the big, wide world of Hubbers.
Paul Deeds Co-Founder and General Manager of HubPages
Before working at HubPages, Paul was a developer at MongoMusic. Paul is a prolific programmer and was responsible for a significant percentage of the MongoMusic code base. Paul continued as a developer at Microsoft working on search engines, recommendation technology, and scalable data systems. A Michigan native, Paul graduated from Tufts University with majors in computer science and economics.
When he's not working, Paul enjoys sailing and poker.
Paul Edmondson Co-Founder and CEO
Paul was part of the executive team at MongoMusic, which was acquired by Microsoft in 2000. Paul held group management positions at MSN Entertainment over product management, quality management, operations, and business management. Paul left Microsoft as the Group Product Manager of MSN Entertainment. Before MongoMusic and Microsoft, Paul was a developer at Hewlett Packard. Paul hails from San Luis Obispo, and graduated from California Polytechnic University.
Jay Reitz Co-Founder and Vice President of Engineering
Jay was a developer at MongoMusic at the time of its acquisition by Microsoft, and subsequently rose quickly in the Microsoft development organization. Starting as an individual contributor, five years later he left Microsoft as the Development Manager for MSN Entertainment. Jay grew up in Baltimore and Palo Alto, and studied computer science at Stanford University.
Jason Menayan VP of Marketing
Prior to his work at HubPages, Jason was a web producer at QuinStreet, managing its flagship education property, WorldWideLearn, and a technical producer at CNET, where he participated in the launch of Shopper.com's CPC affiliate listings. In a prior lifetime, Jason also worked on Comet and Mr Clean for Procter & Gamble, advised clients on emerging technologies at Stanford Research Institute, and taught English in Poland with the Peace Corps. Jason graduated with a BS in chemical engineering from Stanford University and an MBA from Erasmus University in Rotterdam. In his spare time, Jason loves urban exploration, cooking, and travel.
Maddie Ruud Community Manager
Maddie was a freelance writer and longtime Hubber before joining the HubPages team in an official capacity in March 2008. She writes on a variety of topics, from holistic health, to nutrition, to eating disorder awareness.
Offline, Maddie enjoys experimenting in the kitchen, devouring literature, playing with language, and romping with her rescued dog.
Fawntia Fowler Software Engineer
Fawntia joined HubPages in June of 2008 after graduating with a master's degree in computational and mathematical engineering from Stanford. Before Stanford, she was at Reed College where she earned a degree in mathematics. Fawntia grew up in Oregon where she attended a Japanese-themed public school. She especially enjoys visiting her family back in Oregon, reading about economics and real estate, sewing, and taking naps.
Mausmi Mehta Moderator
Mausmi has a background in education and science. She started working for HubPages part-time in early 2009. She also works as an educator for Aspire Education Project, a non-profit serving East Bay families and schools.
In her free time, Mausmi enjoys traveling, exploring the outdoors, making her own wine and spoiling her cats.
Norah Casey Chief Moderator
Prior to joining HubPages, Norah spent two years as a moderator for a live video startup where she learned to suppress all remorse in the war against spammers. She hopes to earn a PhD in Physical Anthropology.
When she has free time, Norah enjoys baking cupcakes, attempting to exhaust her Australian Shepherd's endless energy reserves, skimming classic car classified for her next restoration project, reading 19th century novels and writing short stories only her mother could love.
Simone Haruko Smith Head of Outreach
Before joining the illustrious HubPages crew, Simone worked with a famous Washington DC cupcake shop, a technology forecasting firm, an alternate reality game company, a green fashion magazine, a San Francisco-based chocolate factory, a fitness franchise, two environmental nonprofits, and a medical instrument company. For good measure, she worked as a freelance writer, illustrator, and Pilates teacher on the side. Simone graduated in May 2010 from the George Washington University with a double major in International Business and Marketing and a minor in Fine Arts.
When not engaged with gainful employment or sleep, Simone enjoys writing, reading, photography, the culinary arts, trend spotting, and masochistically long walks.
Ari LamsteinSoftware Engineer
Ari has diverse experience in the world of software. He is one of the original developers on the award winning video game Spore. Prior to that, he was a Ph.D. student in Computer Science at Georgia Tech. In his spare time he enjoys reading, writing, playing classical guitar, playing video games and volunteering with the dogs at the San Francisco SPCA.
Robin Edmondson Education
Before officially joining the HubPages Team, Robin was a third grade teacher in Cupertino, CA and a stay-at-home mom to her and Paul Edmondson’s three girls. She received her BS from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo and a Master’s in Education from the University of Washington.
Robin has been a Hubber since the first days of HubPages, and is extremely excited to be teaching Hubbers all over the world how to make the most of their HubPages experience! In her free time, Robin enjoys being outside with her family and large cookouts in her neighborhood.
Jason MacRae Software Engineer
An intrepid international explorer, Jason recently spent five months travelling through sub-Saharan Africa before moving to the Bay Area from his pleasant home in Adelaide, Australia. Known as Wolverine to some of his colleagues, he can occasionally be seen sporting extravagant sideburns, holiday hair, or in extreme cases full pirate regalia. As a Master Computer Scientist he specializes in Artificial Intelligence of the evolutionary computation kind.
In addition to travelling he enjoys Science Fiction or Fantasy in any form of media written, audio-visual, or interactive (gaming). He has also been known to wax nostalgic about classic Japanese children's shows such as Astro Boy and Monkey Magic, and to evangelize the benefits of a dozenal (base 12) number system to any willing to listen.
Marina Lazarevic Media Sales and Operations
Marina joined HubPages in the summer of 2010, soon after graduating from the University of Southern California with a degree in International Relations. She grew up in the ever-so exciting northern suburbs of Chicago and moved to LA in 2006.
At USC, she was an active member of the debate team which honed her already competitive spirit. While ironically not into sports, Marina enjoys battling in other arenas, such as trivia, video games, and shuffleboard. When trying to take the edge off, she reads about pop culture, technology, and politics. Marina also loves spending time with her family on the east coast, especially her two nieces, and eating at cook-your-own-food restaurants.
Mark Painter Software Engineer
Before joining HubPages, Mark held a number of jobs in software development at a mixture of large and small companies in a variety of areas ranging from low level networking to Web application development. From among the companies Mark has worked at, you probably know of Trend Micro and Novell. Mark got his Master's degree in computer science from UC Berkeley. His intellectual interests include programming and Chinese language. Skiing and sailing are also fun.
Edward Zhang Software Engineer
Edward graduated from UC Berkeley last year in May with a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, and a minor in Japanese. Prior to HubPages, he worked at Haas School of Business as a developer.
His hobbies include sleep, sleep, and sleep, and he loves eating omelettes. His ultimate lifelong goal is to take over the world.
Matt Wells Moderator
Matt is from Kentucky where he earned a B.S. in Justice Administration at the University of Louisville. About three years ago he moved to San Francisco to experience a new city and has no regrets about that. Before becoming a Moderator at HubPages he worked at a non-profit as a Development Assistant. In his spare time Matt enjoys exploring the city, skateboarding, bowling, shooting pool and anything else fun that involves hanging out with friends. Matt is also a big fan of Dachshunds.
Camille Harris Moderator
Camille joined HubPages in April 2011, leaving behind a start-up she worked at for exactly 2 years. She considers herself both easygoing and high-strung - perhaps the result of being raised on both coasts. She prefers the left one, though, and returned to California immediately after earning her BS in marketing and international business from the University of Maryland.
Camille enjoys anything that keeps her moving, regularly engaging her body by hiking, participating in Vinyasa yoga and bouldering indoors. She's a Mac, although she prefers the Android platform and recently traded in her iPhone for an Evo. Camille plans to pursue a graduate degree in developmental psychology in order to reach her goal of working with children and eventually saving the world. Tags: Gadgets, Yoga, Psychology, Vegetarianism, A+, Flip-flops, BART, Green Tea.
Matt Meyer Moderator
Matt Meyer was born and raised in Indiana where he earned a B.S. in Business at Indiana University in Bloomington. Matt migrated westward to Oakland in 2008 and made the jump to San Francisco in 2011. Before becoming a Moderator at HubPages, he worked as a technical trainer, support engineer, web developer, and podcast creator. Matt also has studio art training and enjoys drawing, photography, painting and even dabbled in animation. He loves to ride his bike and explore the awesome vegan food options San Francisco has to offer. He keeps abreast on all things technology (which earned him the nickname "Techno" Matt) and considers himself platform agnostic with Apple OS X, Microsoft Windows, and Ubuntu Linux computers. He has been skydiving twice and was in one or more choirs from second grade to his junior year in college.
Micki Seibel Head of Product
Micki is a consumer Internet product veteran. Prior to joining HubPages, Micki was the Vice President of Product at several start-up companies including Plum District, SmartyCard, and MyNewPlace. She has held executive and senior management positions with eBay, Ask Jeeves, Netscape, and Intel. When not trying to change the world through technology, Micki is an avid tennis player and loves to cook. Micki holds a BS in Information & Decision Systems with a Visual Design minor from Carnegie Mellon University.
Hae Eun Park Moderator
Originally from Southern California, Hae Eun has lived in the Bay Area since 1997. She has worked as an English instructor in Paris, a food slinger in a cafe on a Hollywood studio lot, a web designer, a copy editor for a Japanese company, and your all-around Administrative Assistant. In her spare time, she designs and hand sews plush animals, loves to travel, reads avidly, rides her bicycle around town, and dances to soul music. If you ever want to bribe her, do it with baked goods, with case studies about parasites, or with objects in miniature. She'll be putty in your hands.
Derek Gulbranson User Experience Director
Creating fun and rewarding experiences has a lot of moving parts—and Derek likes to keep his finger on all of them. His passion for learning and 10 years' experience has led him through a multitude of prior design, development and product roles, each bringing unique perspectives to his work today. He is a fascinated collector of odd incongruities in human behavior (e.g., the larger a group you address a question to, the less likely you'll get a response; paying people more to do better makes them do worse). In his free time you may find him collecting more incongruities, studying Arabic, watching the latest sci-fi television series, or availing himself of San Francisco's diverse night life.