Brad Fitzpatrick
{{short description|American programmer and creator of LiveJournal}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Brad Fitzpatrick
| image = Bradfitz-sunglasses.jpg
| caption = Brad Fitzpatrick
| birth_name = Bradley Joseph Fitzpatrick
| birth_date = {{birth date and age|1980|02|05}}
| birth_place = Iowa, United States
| alma_mater = University of Washington
| spouse = Kate Fitzpatrick
| children = 3
| occupation = Programmer
| known =
| website = {{URL|bradfitz.com}}
}}
Bradley Joseph Fitzpatrick (born February 5, 1980) is an American programmer. He is best known as the creator of LiveJournal and is the author of a variety of free software projects such as memcached, PubSubHubbub, OpenID, and Perkeep.
Personal life
Born in Iowa, Fitzpatrick grew up in Beaverton, Oregon, and majored in computer science at the University of Washington in Seattle. He started his first company, FreeVote.com, while in high school.
Fitzpatrick is married to Kate Fitzpatrick. They have three children.{{cite web |last=Fitzpatrick |first=Brad |date=March 6, 2023 |title=And little sister Zoe says hi too. Her older brothers are super excited. 🥰 Welcome to the family!
|url=https://x.com/bradfitz/status/1632881332635451392 |website= |location=Twitter |publisher=Twitter |access-date=April 6, 2025}}
Career
LiveJournal grew out of a journaling program Fitzpatrick wrote for himself as a college freshman.[https://web.archive.org/web/20061107024623/http://images.businessweek.com/ss/06/08/valleyboys/source/8.htm LiveJournal: Brad Fitzpatrick], BusinessWeek (August 14, 2006) Neva Chonin, [https://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/article/LiveJournal-grew-out-of-one-18-year-old-s-2567126.php LiveJournal grew out of one 18-year-old's frustration with Web journaling. Now Brad Fitzpatrick is on top of a blog revolution], San Francisco Chronicle (September 27, 2005) It eventually became a full-time job and then a company; in January 2005 he sold it and its parent company, Danga Interactive, to Six Apart, for an undisclosed sum of cash and stock.[http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1748489,00.asp Six Apart to Buy LiveJournal], eWeek (January 5, 2005){{dead link|date=May 2018}} He was named chief architect of Six Apart.[http://news.livejournal.com/82926.html Big news... Six Apart and LiveJournal!], LiveJournal (5 January 2006) {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100530150815/http://news.livejournal.com/82926.html |date=2010-05-30 }} He left Six Apart in August 2007, moving to Google,Owen Thomas, [http://valleywag.com/tech/brad-fitzpatrick/livejournal-creator-leaves-as-six-apart-fails-to-spin-286218.php LiveJournal creator leaves as Six Apart fails to spin], Valleywag (August 6, 2007) {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071013043244/http://valleywag.com/tech/brad-fitzpatrick/livejournal-creator-leaves-as-six-apart-fails-to-spin-286218.php |date=2007-10-13 }} and in 2008, after the sale of LiveJournal to SUP Media, joined the LiveJournal Advisory Board.Kristen Nicol, [http://mashable.com/2008/02/28/livejournal-advisory-board/ LiveJournal's New Advisory Board Includes Fitzpatrick], Mashable (February 28, 2008) In June 2010 the board was dissolved,[https://lj-advisory.livejournal.com/ Our heartfelt thanks to the LiveJournal Advisory Board], LiveJournal (June 23, 2010) ending his involvement with LiveJournal. At Google he was a Staff Software Engineer and was part of the Go programming language team.[http://golang.org/CONTRIBUTORS Go Language contributors]
In January 2020, Fitzpatrick announced[https://bradfitz.com/2020/01/27/leaving-google Leaving Google], bradfitz.com (January 27, 2020) he was leaving Google. Three days later he joined Tailscale{{Cite twitter|user=bradfitz |number=1222917939495501827 |author=Brad Fitzpatrick |title=Joining @Tailscale |archive-url=https://archive.today/20200215201001/https://twitter.com/bradfitz/status/1222917939495501827 |archive-date=15 Feb 2020 |date=30 Jan 2020}} as a late-stage co-founder.{{Cite web |title=Brad Fitzpatrick |url=https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradfitz |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150820193043/https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradfitz |archive-date=20 August 2015 |access-date=7 June 2021 |via=LinkedIn |url-status=dead }}{{Cite web |title=Tailscale lands $100 million to 'transform' enterprise VPNs with mesh technology |url=https://techcrunch.com/2022/05/04/tailscale-lands-100-million-to-transform-enterprise-vpns-with-mesh-technology/ |date=5 May 2022 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20230223174332/https://techcrunch.com/2022/05/04/tailscale-lands-100-million-to-transform-enterprise-vpns-with-mesh-technology/ |archive-date=23 February 2023 |work=TechCrunch |last=Kyle |first=Wiggers |quote=Avery Pennarun says that the solution lies in Tailscale, a security networking startup he co-founded with David Crashaw, David Carney and Brad Fitzpatrick.}}
Honors
In June 2014, the University of Washington School of Computer Science and Engineering gave Fitzpatrick an award for Early Career Achievement.[https://news.cs.washington.edu/2014/03/06/uw-cses-brad-fitzpatrick-wins-diamond-award-for-early-career-achievement/ UW CSE's Brad Fitzpatrick wins Diamond Award for Early Career Achievement], Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering, University of Washington (March 6, 2014)
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
- {{Commons category-inline|Brad Fitzpatrick}}
- {{Official website|http://bradfitz.com}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fitzpatrick, Brad}}
Category:American male bloggers
Category:People from Beaverton, Oregon
Category:University of Washington College of Engineering alumni