Bill Tai

About Bill Tai

Bill Tai has been funding startups as a Venture Capitalist since 1991 and has had 23 of his startups become listed companies. Personal Angel backer of 3 of the top 10 on \"CNBC\'s 50 Top Disruptor List for 2022\"(#3 Lineage Logistics,#4 Canva,#9 Dapper Labs). Companies he has been involved with at their starts surpassed $1 Trillion in aggregate market value in 2021. Originally trained as a chip designer, he joined LSI Logic, a seminal Silicon Valley startup formed by the CEO of Fairchild Semiconductor after earning a BSEE with Honors from University of Illinois. After an MBA at Harvard he was issued Badge #A001 during the formation of TSMC (NYSE:TSM), now among the world’s 10 most valuable companies (~$1 Trillion USD market value as of 2024)).He co-founded Treasure Data (acquired by ARM/Softbank) as Chairman and is among the first investors in Bitfury, Canva, Color Health, Dapper Labs (originator of Cryptokitties and NBA Topshot), Dyad.net, Gigaverse, Metagood, Powerledger, Safety Culture, Tweetdeck/Twitter, Wish.com and Zoom Video, where he was the first backer to commit at the company\'s formation. He is Founding Board Chairman of Hut8 Mining (NASDAQ: HUT), an energy infrastructure company with subsidiaries HighriseAI operating Nvidia based GPU Data Centers and American Bitcoin (NASDAQ ABTC) operating BItcoin mining data centers. He was Founding Chairman & CEO of iAsiaWorks (IPO via Goldman Sachs & Morgan Stanley) a builder / operator of data center infrastructure in 10 countries through Asia and Founding Chairman of IPinfusion (Tokyo:4813). He has served as Board Director of 8 publicly listed companies (AWRD EGHT HUT8 IAWK NPIX TMTA TUNE and IMGO) that grew from startups he funded at their formative stages. He is founding Chairman of ACTAI Global 501(c)3, a community of Athletes Conservationists Technologists Artists & Innovators supporting 1) environmental conservation and 2) economic empowerment via entrepreneurship. He is creator or cofounder of the worldwide startup competition the annual and the annual a person technology and innovation festival held annually in Perth Western Australia where he is an Adjunct Professor at Curtin University focused on “innovation and economic development”. As of 2023 he began serving on the Board of Advisors to the dean of Harvard Business School.

Experience

1. Chairman of the Board

   Hut 8

   Dec 2017 — Present · US

   Board Chairman of HUT8 Corp, publicly listed in 2017 (NASDAQ: HUT). HUT is an energy infrastructure company with subsidiaries HighriseAI (Nvidia GPU based data centers) and American Bitcoin (crypto mining and treasury). HUT was once a division of Bitfury Corp, a pioneering Bitcoin Miner with custom designed ASICs starting 2011. HUT8 Corp as of 2024 manages over 1 Gigawatt of energy with pipeline of 12 Gigawatts fueling its subsidiaries as well as providing managed services to other data center operations. As of 2024, HUT8 8 Corp is also among the top 5 largest listed company holders of Bitcoin on its balance sheet.

Education

• University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

  BSEE, Electrical Engineering

• Harvard Business School

  Masters in Business Administration, Finance & Economics

• Curtin University

  Doctor of Philosophy - PhD, International Economics

Skills

• Wireless Technologies
• Kiteboarding
• Cloud Computing
• Financial Analysis
• Mergers & Acquisitions
• Entrepreneurship
• Cross-Functional Team Leadership
• Strategy
• E-Commerce
• Marketing Strategy
• Executive Management
• Product Marketing
• Social Networking
• Kitesurfing
• Strategic Planning
• Product Management
• Mobile Applications
• Enterprise Software
• Semiconductors
• Mergers
• Competitive Analysis
• Start-Ups
• Leadership
• Angel Investing
• Finance
• Awesomeness
• Corporate Development
• Analytics
• Product Development
• Business Strategy
• Go-to-Market Strategy
• Mobile Devices
• Wireless
• Venture Capital
• New Business Development
• Strategic Partnerships
• Business Development
• Software as a Service (Saas)
• Ipo
• Saas