Zack Urlocker is a pseudonym for a Silicon Valley software executive rapidly approaching leaving his mid-life crisis.

Zack has worked for more than thirty years in the software industry and has held executive positions in a range of enterprise software companies including Duo Security, Zendesk, MySQL and Active Software. He has had four exits (including two IPOs) each of which was worth more than a billion dollars. He has been an advisor and board member to high-growth venture-backed software companies including Cockroach Labs, Contentful, DataStax, GitLab, HackerOne, HubSpot, PagerDuty, Pentaho, PubNub, PuppetLabs, Real Green Systems, Recharge, Sisense and Sqreen. For a few brief but intense years, he ran Gatsby, a venture-backed startup, which was sold to Netlify in 2023. He's seen rapid growth, innovation, disruption, platform transitions, downturns, mergers, layoffs, recessions and more. 

Zack is an avid cyclist and reformed marathoner, having qualified for and run Boston Marathon. He's taught classes in Entrepreneurship, published a noir detective novel, written a rock opera, played in a blues band and run on the Great Wall of China.

He lives in Traverse City, Michigan, with his wife and a small but growing collection of antique computers, electric guitars, synthesizers and vintage Mad Magazines.

Also available on Substack