Team

Neal Stephenson, Chairman

Neal is a well-known novelist with multiple bestsellers under his belt and an insider’s keen understanding of the old-school publishing industry. As Chairman of the Board, he helps the Company develop its technology and services in a way which will be useful to and understood by authors and other members of the publishing world, old and new.

In addition to his role as Chairman, Neal is also the guiding force behind The Mongoliad, the first story which the Company is telling, and Foreworld, the shared world in which it is told. He is also the Company’s armorer, in charge of developing and producing helmets, gauntlets, and other such protective items as may be required.

Jeremy Bornstein, President and CTO

Jeremy is a serial entrepreneur with a love of martial arts and fiction. Jeremy is a highly experienced engineering manager, software architect, and programmer with deep experience in a wide range of diverse fields.

Prior to Subutai, Jeremy served as founder of Smith & Tinker, a venture-backed connected toy startup. Before that, he served as Vice President, Engineering and Chief Technology Officer for Atom Entertainment (f/k/a AtomShockwave), where he was responsible for the architecture behind that company’s highly successful distributed multiplayer game platform. Jeremy was also the Chief Platform Architect at Perpetual, Inc., where he designed and built server-side systems for massively multiplayer online games, and also a founder of Xigo, Inc., a provider of systems and services for real-time analysis of massive quantities of streaming unstructured data from the financial markets. At Xigo he served as Vice President of Engineering and Chief Technology Officer. Jeremy’s work at Xigo resulted in 13 patent applications. Prior to Xigo, Jeremy held senior positions at Certicom and in Apple’s Advanced Technology Group, where he was responsible for seminal research in the fields of collaborative filtering and information retrieval.

Jeremy holds nine patents and a second degree black belt in aikido. He graduated from Brown University with a bachelor’s degree in cognitive science. His favorite weapon is the longsword, but he also enjoys training with the poleaxe when the chandeliers are moved out of the way or have already been broken.

Lenny Raymond, VP Strategy and Development

Lenny is in charge of partner relationships, extispication, and keeping it real. He also cleans the Bunsen burners in the secret lab.

Lenny was previously a partner in Volvox Associates, a consultancy which works at the intersection of emerging technologies and interactive entertainment, helping clients start new businesses and address opportunities and threats that arise from novel uses of technology. Volvox’s clients range from MTV to the US federal government.

Lenny was also Principal & EIR at Alsop Louie Partners, a venture capital firm, where he started Smith & Tinker, a revolutionary high tech childrens’ entertainment company. Earlier, Lenny was co-founder & COO of FingerTwitch, the worldwide leader in middleware for mobile games. He was also founding CEO of Xigo, a provider of real-time information extraction technology. Earlier in his career, Lenny led Wizards of the Coast (Hasbro)’s online business unit; he has also worked at Oliver Wyman (Mercer) management consulting, in Apple Computer’s Advanced Product Group, and in corporate finance at Citibank.

Lenny’s education includes a bachelor’s from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from Wharton. He enjoys rainbows, unicorns, and long walks off short piers. These days he favors Bartitsu-style cane fighting, but has been known to engage toughs while armed with nothing but his bare fists.

(Lenny’s photo has been redacted due to his continuing work with three letter USG agencies.)

Mark Teppo, Chief Creative Officer

Mark is the author of the urban fantasy novels, The Codex of Souls, an occult noir series that capitalizes on his serial (and parallel) bibliophilia. His keen understanding of and memory for the details and intricacies of plot and character in fictional worlds, a love of storytelling, and a passion for bringing rich, complex worlds into being make him the ideal person to helm the Company’s creative production.

Mark enjoys cleaving things in twain with a messer, but he’s also quite happy just to stare you down. He's also the kind of guy who has a favorite Tarot card.

Karen Laur, Art Director

Karen is an accomplished art director, texture artist, and frequently-injured equestrian who has spent the past 16 years in the games industry. She has extensive experience in the development of digital environments, avatars and UIs. As texture artist for Valve Software, she set the look and feel of the game Half-Life. Prior to getting involved in game development, Karen worked as Head Designer of New Product Development at Maya Romanoff as well as co-owning the seminal DC restaurant, “Dante’s”.

More recently, as Art Director at Forterra Systems, Karen contributed to the advancement of serious games by building mnemonic devices using stone knives and bear skins.

30 years’ experience with smart boys wielding swords makes Karen feel very comfortable in the present company. When her goatee grows in she fully intends to shave her head.