{"id":"shane-mac","title":"Shane Mac","content":"**Shane Mac** is a serial entrepreneur and technology executive, best known as the Co-founder and CEO of XMTP Labs, the company developing the decentralized communication protocol XMTP. His career is marked by the creation of several technology companies that were later acquired, including the social intelligence platform Gist, acquired by BlackBerry, and the conversational commerce platform Assist, acquired by Coveo. Mac is also the co-founder of the remote executive assistant service Squared Away and is an active angel investor in the technology sector. [\\[1\\]](#cite-id-xPJxxknyKa19eMxG) [\\[2\\]](#cite-id-MoWJ2fGer1uCQYUe)​\n\n## Education\n\nHe earned a bachelor’s degree in Finance and Economics from Western Illinois University. [\\[2\\]](#cite-id-MoWJ2fGer1uCQYUe)​\n\n## Career\n\n### Early Ventures\n\nAround 2003, Mac co-founded imsecure, an early-stage company that focused on providing enterprise-level security solutions for instant messaging platforms. This venture marked his initial entry into building technology businesses centered on communication tools. [\\[4\\]](#cite-id-oBbtjo0QaCwrD2Dj)​\n\n### Gist and BlackBerry\n\nFrom approximately 2006 to 2010, Mac served as the Co-founder and CEO of Gist. The company developed a platform described as an \"inbox intelligence\" service and a professional contact management tool. Gist aggregated information about a user's contacts from various online sources, including social media and news outlets, and integrated this data directly into their email inbox to provide deeper context for their communications. \n\nIn February 2011, Gist was acquired by BlackBerry (then Research In Motion). Following the acquisition, Mac joined BlackBerry and served as the Director for Gist until January 2013. In this role, he was responsible for leading the Gist team and integrating its contact management technology into the broader BlackBerry ecosystem. Mac has since reflected on this period as a key learning experience regarding the cultural and operational challenges of integrating a small, agile startup into a large corporation. [\\[2\\]](#cite-id-MoWJ2fGer1uCQYUe) [\\[4\\]](#cite-id-oBbtjo0QaCwrD2Dj) [\\[3\\]](#cite-id-MOXmzkCbK13jOJeK) \n\n### Assist\n\nIn January 2013, Mac co-founded Assist, where he also served as CEO until December 2017. Assist was an early platform in the conversational commerce space, enabling brands to build and deploy automated messaging experiences, or chatbots, on major communication platforms such as Facebook Messenger and X (formerly Twitter). The technology allowed users to interact with businesses—for tasks like booking hotels or ordering food—directly through chat interfaces. The company's goal was to streamline a wide range of business-to-consumer interactions using artificial intelligence and automation. In May 2019, Assist was acquired by Coveo, a company specializing in AI-powered search and recommendation platforms. [\\[1\\]](#cite-id-xPJxxknyKa19eMxG) [\\[2\\]](#cite-id-MoWJ2fGer1uCQYUe)​\n\n### Squared Away\n\nMac co-founded Squared Away in 2017. The company operates as a subscription service that provides high-quality, U.S.-based remote executive assistants to CEOs, entrepreneurs, and other business leaders. Squared Away has a distinct social mission focused on hiring, training, and providing flexible, remote career opportunities to military spouses. The company is bootstrapped, having not taken any venture capital funding, and has grown to be profitable with an annual recurring revenue (ARR) reported to be over $12 million. [\\[1\\]](#cite-id-xPJxxknyKa19eMxG) [\\[2\\]](#cite-id-MoWJ2fGer1uCQYUe) [\\[4\\]](#cite-id-oBbtjo0QaCwrD2Dj)​\n\n### XMTP Labs\n\nIn August 2021, Mac co-founded XMTP Labs with Matt Galligan, where he serves as CEO. The company is dedicated to building tools and infrastructure for a new, open standard for communication on the internet. [\\[2\\]](#cite-id-MoWJ2fGer1uCQYUe) [\\[3\\]](#cite-id-MOXmzkCbK13jOJeK)​\n\n## Media Appearances\n\nShane Mac appeared on the *BaseLayer* podcast (Episode 3), where he discussed his early work as one of the first developers on Twitter, his experience building products that scaled to millions of users, and his role in co-founding XMTP, a decentralized messaging protocol.\n\n[YOUTUBE@VID](-H_KBLYI-p4)","summary":"Shane Mac is a serial entrepreneur, co-founder and CEO of XMTP Labs, a company developing the secure messaging protocol XMTP. He also co-founded Squared Away, and previously founded Gist (acquired by BlackBerry) and Assist (acquired by Conversocial).","images":[{"id":"QmZK5BdRU11UeLYpvDpqyGnkkeLd8FMeDCZ1uEo7tS5gZW","type":"image/jpeg, image/png"}],"categories":[{"id":"people","title":"people"}],"tags":[{"id":"PeopleInDeFi"},{"id":"Founders"}],"media":[{"id":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-H_KBLYI-p4","size":"0","name":"-H_KBLYI-p4","type":null,"source":"YOUTUBE"}],"metadata":[{"id":"references","value":"[{\"id\":\"xPJxxknyKa19eMxG\",\"url\":\"https://www.shanemac.com/about\",\"description\":\"Shane Mac's personal website\",\"timestamp\":1775046875550},{\"id\":\"MoWJ2fGer1uCQYUe\",\"description\":\"LinkedIn: Shane Mac\",\"timestamp\":1775046961942,\"url\":\"https://www.linkedin.com/in/shanemacsays/\"},{\"id\":\"MOXmzkCbK13jOJeK\",\"description\":\"YouTube: BaseLayer - Ep 3: Shane Mac (Co-founder, XMTP)\",\"timestamp\":1775046976842,\"url\":\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-H\\\\_KBLYI-p4\"},{\"id\":\"oBbtjo0QaCwrD2Dj\",\"url\":\"https://innovationsoftheworld.com/shane-mac/\",\"description\":\"Innovationsoftheworld profile on Shane Mac\",\"timestamp\":1775046875550}]"},{"id":"website","value":"https://www.shanemac.com/"},{"id":"twitter_profile","value":"https://x.com/ShaneMac"},{"id":"linkedin_profile","value":"https://www.linkedin.com/in/shanemacsays/"},{"id":"commit-message","value":"\"Added wiki page for Shane Mac\""}],"events":[{"id":"205a9511-30c9-473f-b03e-3a6a712cf48b","date":"2011-02","title":"Gist Acquired by BlackBerry","type":"DEFAULT","description":"Shane Mac's company, Gist, an inbox intelligence and professional contact management service, was acquired by BlackBerry.","link":null,"multiDateStart":null,"multiDateEnd":null,"continent":null,"country":null},{"id":"3d437ca8-20b8-45ea-974a-f0333b5713fd","date":"2019-01","title":"Founded Squared Away","type":"DEFAULT","description":"Co-founded Squared Away, a service providing high-quality, US-based remote executive assistants for CEOs and business leaders, focusing on hiring military spouses.","link":null,"multiDateStart":null,"multiDateEnd":null,"continent":null,"country":null},{"id":"2c7da376-2a55-41fd-b58a-5252cd4548cb","date":"2019-05","title":"Assist Acquired by Conversocial","type":"DEFAULT","description":"Shane Mac's conversational commerce platform, Assist, was acquired by Conversocial.","link":null,"multiDateStart":null,"multiDateEnd":null,"continent":null,"country":null},{"id":"eb1358bd-384b-47d1-b7a2-c1dfd085c55e","date":"2021-08","title":"Founded XMTP Labs","type":"DEFAULT","description":"Co-founded XMTP Labs with Matt Galligan to build the XMTP (Extensible Message Transport Protocol) network, a secure and decentralized messaging layer for web3.","link":null,"multiDateStart":null,"multiDateEnd":null,"continent":null,"country":null}],"user":{"id":"0x8af7a19a26d8fbc48defb35aefb15ec8c407f889"},"author":{"id":"0x8af7a19a26d8fbc48defb35aefb15ec8c407f889"},"operator":{"id":"0x4a2bC97afBF41a2Cbf4b4628F63420682Ff4CF2a"},"language":"en","version":1,"linkedWikis":{"blockchains":[],"founders":[],"speakers":[]}}