{{short description|American entrepreneur}}
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'''Brandon Tory Thorpe''' is an American entrepreneur, software engineer and artist.
== Early life == He was born In the Boston area and raised in Brockton, Massachusetts. He attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst to study electrical engineering.<ref name="auto">{{Cite web|url=https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/04/google-engineer-went-from-homeless-to-rapper-and-ai-computer-scientist--.html|title=This engineer was a homeless teen — now he's a rapper working at Google|last=Stevens|first=Zameena Mejia, Mary|date=2019-01-08|website=www.cnbc.com|access-date=2019-03-07}}</ref> As a teen, Brandon dreamed of becoming a hacker and taught himself programming on a computer he built from spare parts.<ref name="auto" />
== Career == Brandon's engineering career began at Teradyne where he worked on device driver software for embedded systems. Brandon worked as a senior software engineer at Apple, and later transitioned to Google to work as a staff engineer on artificial intelligence. <ref name="WSJ">{{Cite news|url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/when-your-day-job-isnt-enough-1539777600|title=When Your Day Job Isn’t Enough|last=Feintzeig|first=Rachel|date=2018-10-17|work=Wall Street Journal|access-date=2019-03-07|language=en-US|issn=0099-9660}}</ref> Brandon founded Formless, Inc. which built SHARE Protocol, a decentralized distribution technology using peer-to-peer micro-transactions on blockchain. <ref name="Symphonic">{{Cite news|url=https://blog.symphonic.com/2024/01/24/how-symphonic-distributes-using-the-share-protocol-2|title=How Symphonic Distributes Using the SHARE Protocol|last=Zimmerman|first=Randi|date=2024-01-21|work=Symphonic|access-date=2025-05-22|language=en-US}}</ref> Brandon raised a $2.2 million pre-seed round for Formless with participation from a16z Crypto. <ref name="PRNewswire">{{cite web |title=Formless Successfully Raises $2.2 Million in Pre-Seed Funding |url=https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/formless-successfully-raises-2-2-million-in-pre-seed-funding-302019250.html |website=PR Newswire |date=2023-10-17 |access-date=2025-05-22}}</ref>
== Recognition == The Wall Street Journal featured Brandon on the cover of their Business section in an article titled "When Your Day Job Isn’t Enough; A Computer Nerd Who Raps".<ref name="WSJ" /> CNBC featured Brandon in their ''Young Success'' section with an article titled “From growing up homeless to coding at Apple and Google — all while rapping for Timbaland”.<ref name="auto" /> Forbes featured Brandon in an article titled "Google A.I. Engineer/Rapper Wants Kids To Know It's Cool To Be A Genius".<ref name="Forbes">{{cite web |last=Goldsmith |first=Margie |title=Google A.I. Engineer/Rapper Wants Kids To Know It's Cool To Be A Genius |url=https://www.forbes.com/sites/margiegoldsmith/2019/01/21/google-a-i-engineerrapper-wants-kids-to-know-its-cool-to-be-a-genius/ |website=Forbes |date=2019-01-21 |access-date=2025-05-22}}</ref>
==References== {{Reflist}}
== External links == * {{Official website|www.brandontory.com}} of Brandon Tory Thorpe
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tory, Brandon}} Category:Year of birth missing (living people) Category:Living people Category:Google employees Category:Apple Inc. employees Category:American male rappers Category:University of Massachusetts Amherst College of Engineering alumni Category:Musicians from Brockton, Massachusetts Category:Rappers from Boston