Why we built Icebreaker

Icebreaker is the world’s first open professional network where you meet exceptional people.

Unlike alternatives, Icebreaker is built to enable professionals to seamlessly traverse their entire trusted network, wherever those people are, instead of being limited to just a single platform.

On existing networking platforms, users are the product. Attention, content, and access to our own data are optimized and monetized by third parties. With Icebreaker, identity and data are user-controlled and composable. Any professional can create a hypernetwork out of their existing networks to see their entire extended network and how best to reach them. The goal is to offer a supertool that elevates the signal from the noise, both online and offline.

What does open mean?

At Icebreaker, we believe a better internet is possible and are committed to building it.

Our digital lives, identities, and networks do not belong solely in a handful of closed systems that don't integrate with each other. In the future internet, companies will differentiate by providing a product that people want, not by locking people into their platforms.

That’s why Icebreaker is dedicated to building an open platform, where anyone can bring their existing data with them when they use Icebreaker, and take their data with them if they leave.

Openness manifests in a variety of ways, with permissionlessness at the core. Developers don't need an API key to interact with the data that people have chosen to make public on their Icebreaker profiles. Anyone should be able to build on Icebreaker's identity platform, even if they are direct competitors.

If you are a developer, feel free to take a look at our Developer Hub, or reach out with questions.

If you are a professional interested in owning your own network, we invite you to join us.

Founding team

Dan Stone

Co-Founder, Product

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Dan has spent his career building products from 0-1 at the intersection of predictive analytics, AI/ML, and privacy. He most notably served as a Group Product Manager at Google, where he built Google’s most sophisticated personalized marketing and cross-identity measurement products, Google Analytics and Google Signals, respectively. Prior to co-founding Icebreaker, he served as a Group Product Manager at Coinbase, where he led Consumer Trading, earning a patent for AI-assisted multi-chain intent orchestration. He holds a BS in Management Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Jack Dillé

Co-Founder, Design

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Prior to working in crypto, Jack spent the majority of his career at Google as a UX designer and manager, where he shaped digital experiences for billions of users across Google Shopping, YouTube, and Google Meet, earning four design patents during his seven year tenure. In 2021, he co-founded NFT fractionalization startup SZNS, funded by Dragonfly Capital and Framework Ventures. He holds a BA in Humanities with an emphasis in Tech, Arts, & Media from University of Colorado Boulder.

Eli Perelman

Engineering

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Eli joins Icebreaker with over 20 years of engineering experience, specializing in creating production-ready applications and enhancing teams through UI/UX architecture, tooling, and developer experience. Prior to joining Icebreaker, he worked at Coinbase, Mozilla, and other technology companies, where he managed key frontend initiatives for multiple web and mobile applications, leading teams from technical design through implementation. Eli specializes in frontend engineering and is a recognized open source contributor with over 200 million downloads. Eli holds a BS in Information Technology from Western Governors University.

Emma Stejbach

Operations

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Emma first started her career at Kepler Group, a digital marketing and media consultancy, before joining the Client Solutions team at blockchain adtech startup Madhive. During Madhive’s years of hyper-growth, she held multiple roles across their Engineering and Product departments, most notably leading the backend Engineering, Data Partnerships, and Commercial Strategy programs. She holds BAs in Philosophy and Sociology from Gettysburg College, with minors in Economics and Peace & Justice Studies.

Alan Snyder

Engineering

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Alan joins Icebreaker with over 30 years of engineering experience, specializing in backend architecture and data infrastructure for large enterprises. Alan built and scaled several products at Dell EMC and Bloomberg, working on large-scale database tuning, encryption services, and data integrations. Prior to joining Icebreaker, he was a Senior Engineer at Coinbase, where he helped build Coinbase's NFT Marketplace and USDC products. He recently joined the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) to advance the use of Linked Open Data on the internet. Alan holds a BS in Computer Science from Marist College.