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Ben Sullivan

I like to solve hard problems and build products that people love.

Some bullet points on my life:

• grew up in the Boston area
• 1st love was computers
  • family’s first computer was an Apple IIe, then a Macintosh II
  • some of my fondest childhood memories are of playing computer games like Lucasarts’ Monkey Island 1 and 2
  • started learning BASIC programming at age 9
• homeschooled through middle school and high school
• 2nd love was American film (AFI 100 Years 100 Movies)
• 3rd love was philosophy and language
  • entered university as a Philosophy major
  • changed major to Japanese Language & Literature
• 4th love was Japan
  • 2004 Hokkaido University summer program
  • 2005 JCMU Summer Intensive Japanese language program in Shiga
  • 2005-2006 Hokkaido University Japanese Language and Culture Studies Program with Japanese Government MEXT scholarship
  • 2007 moved to Tokyo to be an English teacher
  • 2009 passed the Japanese-Language Proficiency Test highest level
  • 2010 got my first job as a software developer at a Japanese company
• 5th love was startups
  • heavily influenced by Paul Graham and Eric Ries
  • 2013 cofounded and built Tadaku in Japan (Airbnb for cooking lessons, acquired 2015)
  • 2015-2019 joined Instacart in SF and helped build their grocery data
  • 2019-2025 lead Ecommerce at Unstoppable Domains
  • 2025- self-employed

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Thank you,

Ben