Brett Taylor

Brett Taylor
Name	Brett Taylor
Birth date	1982
Birth place	Sydney, Australia
Occupation	Software engineer, entrepreneur, executive
Known for	Co‑founder of FriendFeed, co‑creator of Google Maps mashups, CTO at Facebook, co‑founder of Quip, CEO at Salesforce engineering

Brett Taylor is an Australian software engineer, entrepreneur, and technology executive known for co‑creating social and collaboration products and for leadership roles at major technology companies. He co‑founded a social aggregation service, contributed to web mapping and real‑time web efforts, and later helped build consumer and enterprise collaboration software. Taylor has held engineering leadership positions at multiple Silicon Valley firms and influenced product strategy across social networking, search, cloud, and productivity sectors.

Early life and education

Taylor was born in Sydney and grew up in Australia, where he developed an early interest in computing and web development. He attended the University of New South Wales and studied computer science and software engineering, participating in student programming communities and technology meetups. After undergraduate studies, he moved to the United States to pursue opportunities in Silicon Valley, joining engineering teams and startup ecosystems around San Francisco and Mountain View.

Career

Taylor began his professional career working on web infrastructure and mapping applications, contributing to projects that integrated mapping data with web services. He co‑founded a social aggregation startup that combined real‑time feeds, social networking, and APIs, attracting attention from major platforms and venture investors. After an acquisition, he joined a global technology company focusing on social networking and served as a technical leader overseeing platform and developer tools. Later he co‑founded a productivity and collaboration startup that created a cloud‑native word processor and spreadsheet focused on real‑time collaboration and mobile UX, which was subsequently acquired by a large enterprise cloud software vendor. Following that acquisition, Taylor served in executive engineering roles at the acquiring company, leading product and platform teams and participating in broader enterprise strategy and integrations.

Throughout his career, Taylor worked with engineering, product, and design teams on developer platforms, API ecosystems, search integrations, and cloud services. He has been involved in platform partnerships with major technology companies, enterprise customers, and developer communities, and has advised or invested in smaller startups and open source projects.

Major projects and contributions

Taylor was a principal contributor to early web mapping mashups and integrations that combined geospatial data with search and local content, influencing how mapping APIs were used by developers and media companies. He co‑founded a social aggregation service that introduced innovations in real‑time feed delivery, microformats, and API design, helping pioneer features later adopted by larger social platforms. As a technical leader at a major social network, he led work on developer tools, platform stability, and large‑scale service infrastructure. His co‑founded collaboration product emphasized synchronous editing, mobile performance, and simplified document workflows, integrating messaging, documents, and spreadsheets in a unified interface. In executive roles at an enterprise cloud company, he worked on integrations between collaboration tools and CRM platforms, data synchronization, security, and enterprise‑grade scalability.

Taylor has participated in open source initiatives and spoken at technology conferences about real‑time collaboration, APIs, developer ecosystems, and product engineering at scale. His engineering approach combined front‑end experience, backend distributed systems, and product design to deliver low‑latency collaborative features and developer‑friendly platforms.

Awards and recognition

Taylor and his teams have been recognized in technology press and industry analyses for innovation in social aggregation, real‑time collaboration, and enterprise productivity. His startups received venture capital backing and news coverage following product launches and acquisition events. He has been profiled in technology blogs and business outlets for his roles at influential technology companies and for leading engineering transformations at scale.

Personal life

Taylor has lived and worked primarily in the San Francisco Bay Area while maintaining ties to Australia. He is active in technology communities, mentors startups, and participates in speaking engagements and advisory roles. Details about his private life are kept minimal in public profiles.

Category:Australian software engineers Category:Technology company founders