Based in Palo Alto, Calif., Machine Zone, Inc. (formerly known as Addmired, Inc.) is focused on creating the most engaging free-to-play mobile social games in the world. Launched in 2008 with Y Combinator, Machine Zone has seen explosive annual growth with its highly successful free-to-play games, including iMob, Original Gangstaz, Global War, iMob 2, Race or Die 2, among others. To date, the company has well over 40 million downloads of their iPhone games and is the recipient of the 2010 Crunchies Award (Techcrunch) for Best Bootstrapped Startup. Machine Zone operates profitably and has raised two rounds of funding from Anthos Capital, Baseline Ventures and Menlo Ventures.
Machine Zone is a unique, highly talented and ambitious team of free-to-play game experts, rock-star engineers, and business operators, coming together to build highly engaging mobile social experiences for our players. We look for talent globally to assemble the smartest and most driven teams capable of achieving extraordinary results. We take pride in the grandeur of our vision, the dedication of our employees, and the boldness of our innovations. We are passionate about our pursuit for excellence in all disciplines of the company, and we are relentless in becoming the best in the industry. Come join us and experience the making of history first hand!
Gabriel Leydon, Chief Executive Officer & Co-Founder
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Gabriel Leydon co-founded Machine Zone (formerly known as Addmired) and has served as Chief Executive Officer since January 2008. Gabe is responsible for company vision, product design, monetization, recruiting, operations, and anything else that keeps him up late at night. Machine Zone is a software company based in Palo Alto, CA, and is focused on creating the most engaging free-to-play mobile social games. As creators of numerous hardcore massively multiplayer online games for mobile devices, Machine Zone currently has three of their games – Original Gangstaz, iMob 2 and Global War – among the 50 top-grossing iPhone apps. |
Halbert Nakagawa, Chief Technology Officer & Co-Founder
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Halbert Nakagawa co-founded Machine Zone (formerly known as Addmired) and has served as our Chief Technology Officer since January 2008. Mr. Nakagawa is responsible for the technology, game engineering, and server operations that support and run all Machine Zone games on a 24/7 basis. From 2006 to 2008, Mr. Nakagawa was a Senior Software Engineer at Global VR, where he was the lead developer for tools and technology platform that shipped titles such as PGA World Tour Golf, NASCAR, Vortek II, and Need For Speed: Carbon. Prior to Global VR, he was a Software Engineer at Signature Devices, a company building military simulations and first person shooter games, where he was responsible for writing multiple tiers of their proprietary game engine including the Sound System, UI System, and tools integration. Mr. Nakagawa holds a B.A. in Applied Mathematics with an emphasis in Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley. |
Mike Sherrill, Creative Director & Co-Founder
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Mike Sherrill co-founded Machine Zone (formerly known as Addmired) and has served as our Creative Director since January 2008. Mr. Sherrill is responsible for the art, community, and quality assurance of all the Machine Zone games. From 2006 to 2009, Mr. Sherrill was the founder, curator, art designer, editor, and writer for Missingtoof, a premiere PR5 music site with a focus on independent music. From 2000 to 2007, he was a lead coordinator in database management at KPMG, and prior to that, he worked at Atari Games on various coin-op games. |
Francois Orsini, VP of Platform Engineering and Chief Architect
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Francois Orsini joined Machine Zone in January 2010 as Vice President of Platform Engineering and Chief Architect, bringing his expertise in building server-side architecture and implementation of next-gen social and server platform. From 2005 – 2010, Francois served as database architect at Sun Microsystems. In addition, his experience spans more than 20 years as senior staff engineering and architect at companies like Oracle, Sybase, Cloudscape and CenterBoard, added to his vast knowledge in his field. Francois has extensive experience working with database and infrastructure development, honing his expertise in distributed data management systems, scalability, security, resource management, HA cluster solutions, soft real-time and connectivity services. He also collaborated with Visa International and Visa USA, to implement the first Visa Cash Virtual ATM for the internet and founded a VC-backed startup called Unikala in 1999. Francois holds a Bachelors Degree in Civil Engineering and Computer Sciences from the Paris Institute of Technology. |
Deepak Gupta, VP of Business
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Deepak Gupta has served as Machine Zone’s VP of Business since March 2011 and is responsible for marketing, monetization, business development and business intelligence. From 2009 to 2011, Mr. Gupta was VP of Business Operations at Outspark, a leading publisher of free2play MMO games where he was in charge of performance-driven user acquisition, retention, BD as well BI analytics. From 2008 to 2009, he led strategy, planning and business operations for EA Online as Director of Strategy & Planning. Prior to EA, Mr. Gupta founded a mobile social games company called Hovr, where he formed partnerships with over 60+ game developers to offer 700+ mobile games in a social community with millions of users in a freemium and ad-supported model. Earlier in his career, he was a technology venture investor at Technology Crossover Ventures, and a technology investment banker at CSFB, DLJ and Wasserstein Perella. Mr. Gupta holds a B.A. in Economics and Mathematics from the University of Rochester. |
Ed Lu, VP of Finance and Administration
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Ed Lu has served as Machine Zone’s VP of Finance and Administration since December 2011 and is responsible for finance, accounting, human resources, talent acquisition and general corporate matters. From 2010 to 2011, Mr. Lu was the CFO at A Bit Lucky, a social gaming startup company backed by free2play gaming inventor, Nexon Co. From 2007 to 2010, he was the Director of Finance at Gazillion Entertainment, a MMO developer and publisher created by gaming legend John Romero and funded by Oak Investment, Hearst Interactive and Allen & Co. Prior to his time in gaming, Mr. Lu spent 8 years in the finance role for semiconductor and systems manufacturing companies such as Altera, AFOP and Omneon (acquired by Harmonics). Mr. Lu holds a B.A. from University of California, Berkeley in Economics and a M.S. from Stanford University in Management Science & Engineering with an emphasis in entrepreneurial finance and strategy, winning the 2006 BASES E-Challenge business plan competition. |
