# Theo Schlossnagle

> Theo Schlossnagle is a serial entrepreneur, software engineer, and investor who has spent three decades pushing the edges of distributed systems and scalable infrastructure. Founder of OmniTI (1997), Circonus (2010), and General Partner at L42 Ventures, he is a Distinguished Member of the ACM, an IEEE member, co-chair of ACM's Queue Magazine, and the author of 'Scalable Internet Architectures'. Beyond software, he runs a butcher shop in Maryland, maintains a farm retreat in West Virginia, and has left Twitter for greener (and more federated) social pastures.

- **Role:** General Partner at L42 Ventures
- **Organizations:** L42 Ventures, Circonus, OmniTI, African Women Entrepreneurship Cooperative (AWEC), ACM (Association for Computing Machinery), IEEE, Apache Software Foundation, The Butchers Club of Maple Lawn, Rally Ventures
- **Nationality:** American
- **Education:** Bachelor's degree in Computer Science (focus: graphics and randomized algorithms), Johns Hopkins University, Master's degree in Computer Science, Johns Hopkins University, Post-graduate research in distributed systems resource allocation, Johns Hopkins University
- **Known for:** Author of 'Scalable Internet Architectures' (Sams, 2006), Co-author of 'Web Operations' and contributor to a third book on large-scale technical systems, Distinguished Member of the ACM

## Career timeline

- **1997** — Founded OmniTI, a consulting firm specializing in scalability, performance, and security for large-scale internet systems
- **early 2000s** — Principal architect of Momentum MTA, later the flagship product of Message Systems (now SparkPost)
- **2006** — Published 'Scalable Internet Architectures' (Sams Publishing)
- **2010** — Founded Circonus, a monitoring and analytics platform built for time-series data at scale
- **2011** — Presented 'Career Development' at O'Reilly Velocity Conference; began frequent conference speaking circuit
- **2013** — Chaired O'Reilly Velocity Conference China; presented monitoring and observability sessions at Velocity
- **2017** — Featured in ACM 'People of ACM' profile; co-founded The Butchers Club of Maple Lawn in Fulton, MD
- **2018** — Spoke on software ethics at QCon London 2018; elected ACM Member at Large (2018-2022)
- **2019** — Presented at SREcon19 Americas and SREcon19 Asia; spoke at CRAFT Conference 2019
- **2022** — Spoke at CRAFT Conference 2022; described as 'Founder & Distinguished Engineer at Circonus'
- **2024** — Announced departure from Twitter/X in October 2024, moving to Bluesky, Threads, and Mastodon
- **2026** — Joined Rally Ventures as Tech Partner (February 2026); continues as General Partner at L42 Ventures

## Achievements

- Author of 'Scalable Internet Architectures' (Sams, 2006)
- Co-author of 'Web Operations' and contributor to a third book on large-scale technical systems
- Distinguished Member of the ACM
- Member of IEEE
- Co-chair/editorial board member of ACM's Queue Magazine
- Member of ACM Practitioner Board
- ACM Member at Large (2018-2022)
- Apache Software Foundation (ASF) Member
- Contributed to 200+ open source projects
- Speaker at 150+ industry events worldwide
- Founded six technology companies with multiple successful exits
- Board Member of the African Women Entrepreneurship Cooperative (AWEC)
- Founding member of The Butchers Club of Maple Lawn

## Latest updates

- **2026-02** — Joined Rally Ventures as a Tech Partner, bringing operator-centric perspective to portfolio company diligence and mentorship
- **2024-10** — Publicly departed Twitter/X, directing followers to Bluesky (@postwait.lethargy.org), Threads, and Mastodon (@postwait@mastodon.social)
- **2022-05** — Spoke at CRAFT Conference 2022 on 'When understanding minimal viable quality promotes master craft'
- **2022-01** — Described as 'Founder & Distinguished Engineer' at Circonus, signaling evolution of his role from CEO to technical leadership

## Links

- Website: http://lethargy.org/~jesus/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/postwait/
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/postwait
- GitHub: https://github.com/postwait
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/postwait/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theo.schlossnagle/

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/theo-schlossnagle
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-04-20