# Gavin McDermott

> Investor at IDEO CoLab Ventures

Location: San Francisco, California, United States
Profile: https://flows.cv/gavinmcdermott

Currently working at IDEO CoLab on distributed systems, dispersed computing, peer-to-peer networks. Day to day, I'm building systems for the internet's much needed infrastructure and application rewrite.

Before CoLab I was a founding engineer at BitGo, a bitcoin security company, and a front-end lead at Lovely. Recently I have been exploring consciousness, truth, symbology, and the concepts presented by some brilliant thinkers and makers dealing with the human expression, idea representation, and communication.

## Work Experience
### Investor IDEO CoLab Ventures @ IDEO CoLab
Jan 2017 – Present | San Francisco Bay Area

### Engineering and Research @ IDEO
Jan 2015 – Present | San Francisco Bay Area
Working on distributed systems, dispersed computing, and peer-to-peer networks, I design for the emerging internet.

### Founding Engineer @ BitGo, Inc.
Jan 2014 – Jan 2015
First hire at BitGo, Inc.; lots of building on BTC/multisig in the early days.

### Javascript Engineering / UX Design @ Lovely
Jan 2013 – Jan 2014
Lead front-end engineer; left only because of a deep interest in cryptocurrency.

### Head of Product @ Narrable
Jan 2012 – Jan 2013 | Tempe, Arizona
I studied the latest in behavior design (from the practice of BJ Fogg, Dean Eckles, etc.) and applied theory in the product design process.

### BrightMonk - India Workshops @ BrightMonk Innovation
Jan 2012 – Jan 2012 | Bangaluru, India and Delhi, India
From Delhi to Bangalore, I worked with engineers and product startups with respect to experience design, workflow design, usability, and product development methodology.

### UX Engineer / Head of Product @ BrightMonk Innovation
Jan 2009 – Jan 2012
Working with a small, competent team, I primarily led the design and managed the engineering of new products and experiences (both hardware and software) for multiple early-stage ventures. Also handled rapid prototyping.

My involvement spanned a number of areas. We covered ground from service experience design to text-based purchasing and facial recognition game development.

BrightMonk involvement included these companies, among others: HyLo, Publink, Unicorn Media, Invoy Technologies, ReplyBuy, Bollyverse, Narrable, ServerLift, QRU.

### Co-Founder @ HyLo, LLC (now Publink)
Jan 2009 – Jan 2011
In 2008, I co-founded a location-based, time-triggered event and deal platform. Hacked a little in RoR.

Mid 2009 the platform was licensed to Publink (http://publink.com/), and the technology is currently supports the country's largest public radio stations (KQED, OPB, KUT, WBUR, and others).

### Executive Director @ TiE Arizona
Jan 2009 – Jan 2010
I ran the Arizona chapter of TiE (The International Entrepreneurs), the largest global association of entrepreneurs.

### Product Designer / Experience Designer @ Independent Consultant
Jan 2009 – Jan 2010
I primarily worked with a consumer-web and facial-recognition-based gaming company. My roles were new product initiatives and concept / visual design.

### Co-Founder @ Root4 Energy Solutions
Jan 2006 – Jan 2008
Co-founded Arizona's first mini-biorefinery development company.


## Education
### Advanced Javascript
Hack Reactor

### BSBA in Finance
Creighton University


## Contact & Social
- LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/gavinmcdermott

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Source: https://flows.cv/gavinmcdermott
JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/gavinmcdermott/resume.json
Last updated: 2026-04-13