Dan Grigsby makes the "40 under 40"

posted by pete on May 11th, 2008

Congratulations to Unspace pal and soon-to-be RubyFringe speaker Dan Grigsby, who was recently profiled in Business Journal’s top “40 under 40” list. Dan is highly deserved of your respect and praise.

Dan Grigsby has launched and sold two Internet startups, held a leadership position at Microsoft Corp. and helped turn around one of the nation’s biggest security-software companies. He did it all by age 30.

But since returning to the Twin Cities from Silicon Valley five years ago, his focus in the local tech scene has been on advising those around him, rather than his own career.

“I wanted to be a catalyst to help folks get startups off the ground,” he said. But Grigsby expects to again lead his own venture, likely in the clean-technology software space.

I met Dan at the 2006 Emerging Technologies conference in San Diego. More specifically, Dan waited for the first intermission to bee-line in my direction and introduce himself, cementing my first impression of him being the most extroverted geek I know. I’ve heard him described as a “three ideas before breakfast kind of guy” but I just tell people the truth:

Dan Grigsby is unafraid.

I would never dream of suggesting that keynoters like Paul Graham or Marc Andreessen are tired, but I sure am glad that we have minds like Dan, Leila Boujnane, and Reginald Braithwaite speaking at our conference this July.