virtual-hq
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Vishal Punwani
Vishal Punwani is the CEO and co-founder of SoWork, a generative-AI virtual workplace platform born at Harvard's Innovation Labs. A medical doctor turned founder, he traded clinical medicine and a stint at the World Health Organization for the question of how distributed teams keep a culture alive when nobody shares a hallway. He and his two co-founders, who first met playing World of Warcraft as teenagers, set out to borrow what video games solved decades ago - presence, spontaneity, belonging - and bring it to remote work. In October 2021 the company raised a $15M seed round led by Talis Capital, counting Tinder among its early customers.
Samuel Smith
Samuel 'Sam' Smith is the CEO of Gather, the spatial virtual-office platform for distributed teams. He joined in mid-2022 as a data scientist after falling for the product on an office visit, rose to Head of Data and Business Analytics, and was named CEO in April 2026 when founders Phillip Wang, Mohammed Kumail Jaffer and Jinen Kamdar handed over the reins. A Denver-based data person turned chief executive, he is steering an independent, non-venture-backed Gather back to its roots: spontaneous conversations, customizable rooms, pets, and the small delightful details that make remote work feel less remote.