# Larry Gadea

> Larry Gadea is the founder and CEO of Envoy, the San Francisco-based workplace platform that turned the humble office sign-in book into a $1.4 billion unicorn. A Romanian refugee who was recruited by Google at 17, created Twitter's 'Murder' infrastructure tool as one of its first 50 employees, and spotted a market gap nobody else noticed: enterprise software had completely ignored the physical office. From smuggled out of communist Romania to building the software that runs 14,000+ workplaces in 70 countries, Gadea's story is one of relentless pattern recognition, resilience, and the stubborn conviction that the office deserves the same engineering love as everything else in tech.

- **Role:** CEO and Founder at Envoy
- **Organizations:** Envoy, Google, Twitter, Shopify
- **From:** Romania
- **Nationality:** Romanian-Canadian
- **Education:** Bachelor of Engineering, Software Engineering, Carleton University
- **Known for:** Forbes 30 Under 30 (2017), Built Envoy into a $1.4 billion unicorn with $201.7M total funding raised, Created 'Murder,' the BitTorrent-based distribution tool that helped Twitter survive its explosive growth

## Career timeline

- **~1988** — Born in Romania during the Ceaușescu era
- **~1991** — Family escaped Romania, lived in Germany before settling in Ottawa, Canada
- **~1999** — Started programming at age 8; later built the world's biggest Pikachu pictures website at age 12
- **2005** — Recruited by Google at age 17 while still in high school, after his WordPerfect plugin for Google Desktop went viral among US lawyers
- **2005-2009** — Software engineering intern at Google while simultaneously attending Carleton University
- **2009** — Graduated from Carleton University with a B.Eng in Software Engineering; joined Twitter as one of its first ~50 employees
- **2009-2012** — Infrastructure Engineer at Twitter; created 'Murder,' a BitTorrent-based datacenter distribution system that helped Twitter scale
- **2012** — Brief involvement with Milo and Shopify after leaving Twitter
- **2013** — Founded Envoy in San Francisco, starting with a visitor management iPad app to replace paper sign-in books
- **2017** — Named to Forbes 30 Under 30 list
- **2022** — Raised $111M Series C led by Brookfield Growth, valuing Envoy at $1.4 billion (unicorn status)
- **2024** — Envoy serves 14,000+ workplaces in 70 countries, championing the hybrid workplace era

## Achievements

- Forbes 30 Under 30 (2017)
- Built Envoy into a $1.4 billion unicorn with $201.7M total funding raised
- Created 'Murder,' the BitTorrent-based distribution tool that helped Twitter survive its explosive growth
- One of Twitter's first ~50 employees
- Recruited by Google at age 17 as one of its youngest software engineers
- Grew Envoy to 14,000+ workplaces across 70 countries
- Envoy used by marquee customers including Slack, Pinterest, Warby Parker, Lionsgate, L'Oreal, and Disney
- Served as judge for Start-Up Chile for over 6 years
- Raised $111M Series C during COVID-19, betting correctly on the office's return

## Latest updates

- **2024-05** — Larry Gadea gave an interview to Digital Doughnut discussing Envoy's evolution into a full workplace platform and hybrid work trends.
- **2024-01** — Envoy featured as a leading in-office company, with Gadea publicly advocating for thoughtful return-to-office strategies on LinkedIn.
- **2022-01** — Envoy raised $111M Series C at a $1.4 billion valuation, led by Brookfield Growth, confirming unicorn status.

## Links

- Website: https://envoy.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/larrygadea
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/lg

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/larry-gadea
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-05-25