# Barry McCardel

> Barry McCardel is the San Francisco-based co-founder and CEO of Hex, a collaborative analytics platform founded in 2019 with Caitlin Colgrove and Glen Takahashi. A Northwestern alumnus and former Palantir deployment strategist, he writes about customer research, product development, organizational autonomy, and AI, and makes small investments in technology companies.

- **Role:** Co-founder and CEO at Hex
- **Organizations:** Hex, Palantir, Formation Bio (formerly TrialSpark)
- **Education:** B.S., with a focus on network science, Northwestern University
- **Known for:** Co-founded Hex, bringing analysis, collaboration, and interactive data applications into a shared workspace., Led Hex through its $70 million Series C announced in May 2025., Reported more than 1,500 teams using Hex worldwide in May 2025.

## Career timeline

- **Before Palantir** — Studied at Northwestern and worked in consulting, using data analysis and Excel.
- **Before Hex** — Spent approximately five years at Palantir in deployment work; later worked at TrialSpark.
- **2019** — Co-founded Hex with Caitlin Colgrove and Glen Takahashi.
- **2021** — Hex announced a $16 million Series A led by Redpoint.
- **2022** — Hex announced a $52 million Series B led by Andreessen Horowitz.
- **2025** — Hex acquired Hashboard and announced a $70 million Series C; McCardel reported more than 1,500 teams worldwide using Hex.

## Achievements

- Co-founded Hex, bringing analysis, collaboration, and interactive data applications into a shared workspace.
- Led Hex through its $70 million Series C announced in May 2025.
- Reported more than 1,500 teams using Hex worldwide in May 2025.

## Latest updates

- **2026-10** — Featured in a FogLine Visuals production case study for The Last Mile podcast with Ivory Tang, published October 12.
- **2026-04** — Published Write for Yourself, arguing that writing is part of thinking through decisions.
- **2026-04** — Published Weirdos wanted, adapted from an internal memo about hiring and independent thinking.
- **2026-03** — Updated his essay explaining forward deployed engineering and why Hex uses a different model.

## Links

- Website: https://barry.ooo/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/barrymccardel/
- Twitter/X: https://x.com/barrald
- GitHub: https://github.com/barrald/

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/barry-mccardel
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-10-16