James Gwertzman
About James Gwertzman
I've been an investor, executive, and game creator. I helped launch Games Fund One at a16z, and continue advising several companies today. I was CEO and co-founder of PlayFab, a cloud-based backend-as-a-service that we sold to Microsoft in 2018 where I subsequently led the Azure for gaming business. I co-founded casual game creator Sprout Games, which we sold to PopCap Games in 2005 where I went on to set up and run PopCap's Asia operations headquartered in Shanghai. Before co-founding PlayFab, I took time out to play a key role at the non-profit Code.org organizing the Hour of Code initiative, which introduced more than 20 million students to computer science in December of 2013. Working with the amazing code.org team was one of the most fun and gratifying things I've done in my career. Today I am lead artist for the Moonlight Collective, an organization I co-founded in 2021 to bring inspiring interactive art installations to the world. Our work draws from our deep experience in the game industry, and leverages immersive sound, light, and storytelling to move people.