
From Tapjoy’s virtual rewards to Immersv’s virtual theaters, Mihir Shah has kept returning to the same bargain: give people a reason to watch. His career follows the distance between a clever advertising idea and an audience willing to try it.

His route to the games business ran through retail promotions, racing, virtual reality and esports. At Xsolla, those lessons have become a practical brief: make global commerce feel local, and make an infrastructure company useful to the people creating the games.