Andrew Benton

Experience

Charge

Founder 2013 - Present (over 13 years)

Exit

Twilio

Lead Software Engineer 2010 - 2012 (over 2 years)

Infoblox

Employee 2009 - 2010 (6 months)

Founder

Charge, RushHQ

Employee

Twilio, Infoblox

Advisor

Strive Digital

Board Member

Charge

Projects

twilio-ruby

Lead Engineer · A Ruby gem for communicating with the Twilio API and generating TwiML.

Charge Mobile Phone Service

Simple mobile phone service that puts you in control

Product Manager · Managed the team and product from inception to launch

Mobile phone service offered on your terms. No contracts, simple… · More

With John Donley, Todd Miller, Artur Pokusin, Christopher Goddard

Charge Messenger

Fast, free cross-platform messaging

Send messages, create groups and share photos with anyone in your address book seamlessly across iOS, Android and web. With a GIFy twist thrown in for fun.

With Christopher Goddard, Artur Pokusin, John Donley, Todd Miller

Education

About

Achievements

Built and launched the Charge MVNO, which provides LTE data service along with voice and text via a direct relationship with Sprint. Built and launched Charge Messenger, a free messaging application for iOS, Android and web. Built and launched Bolt, a free P2P calling app for Android.

Before founding Charge, I built a number of systems at Twilio that are still in use today, most notably the PHP HTTP application framework that powers Twilio's web properties and many internal applications, as well as the official Ruby library for communicating with Twilio's HTTP API. Before that built and launched RushHQ, an online college fraternity recruitment tool.

Describe the most impressive thing you've done.

Skills

Ruby Javascript PHP Product Development Product Management Android Go Networking Negotiation Software Engineering

Locations

Silicon Valley

Q&A

What's the most useful business-related book you've ever read?

The Innovator's Dilemma

What's your favorite non-business book?

Cat's Cradle

What words of advice would you give your younger self?

HTML is cool and all, but you should really figure out how this cgi-bin thing works.

Andrew Benton

Founder @charge. Former Lead SWE @twilio. Former DNS junkie @infoblox. Half of an Econ PhD from @princeton-university. Math BA from @university-of-pennsylvania.