163: Paul English | $2 Billion Man w/ Bipolar Disorder

Paul is the CTO of Lola.com, the easiest way for a business to manage their employee travel. Previously, Paul was CTO of KAYAK, a travel company he co-founded in 2004, took public in 2012, and sold to Priceline in 2013. Paul is also the founder of GetHuman, a service created to give consumers excellent customer service at any company.

Paul grew up in Boston (as did his parents), his father was a pipefitter at Boston Gas Company, Paul’s first job was delivering the Boston Globe, and he went to Boston public schools until he studied music and computer science at UMASS Boston. (As you can guess, Paul is a Boston Red Sox fan, and his accent gets worse in bahs.)

Paul is the subject of Tracy Kidder’s book “A Truck Full of Money”, published by Random House in September 2016. Which tells the story of Paul English, a kinetic and unconventional inventor and entrepreneur, who as a boy rebelled against authority. Growing up in working-class Boston, English discovers a medium for his talents the first time he sees a computer. As a young man, despite suffering from what would eventually be diagnosed as bipolar disorder, he begins his pilgrim’s journey through the ups and downs in the brave new world of computers. Relating to the Internet as if it’s an extension of his own mind, he discovers that he has a talent for conceiving innovative enterprises and building teams that can develop them, becoming “a Pied Piper” of geeks. His innovative management style, success, and innate sense of fair play inspire intense loyalty. Early on, one colleague observes: “Someday this boy’s going to get hit by a truck full of money, and I’m going to be standing beside him.” Yet when English does indeed make a fortune, when the travel website Kayak is sold for almost two billion dollars—the first thing he thinks about is how to give the money away: “What else would you do with it?” The second thing he thinks is, What’s next?

Nonprofit Work

Paul is cofounder of Summits Education, an organization that is building education systems in rural Haiti. Summits operates a network of 41 schools in Haiti's Central Plateau, employing over 350 educators, and serving 10,000 students. Paul first went to Haiti in 2003. (Paul wè bote ak espwa.)

Paul is a Director of Partners In Health and of Village Health Works, both organizations providing quality healthcare to populations of extreme poverty. Paul is also very interested in problems of homelessness in Boston.

Paul’s latest project is to bring an MLK Memorial to Boston.

Ancient History

Paul was previously President of Boston Light Software, an ecommerce company sold to Intuit, where Paul then served as VP Technology. Paul was a cofounder/Director (with his brother Ed) of Intermute, a security software company sold to Trend Micro.

Paul was briefly an entrepreneur in-residence at Greylock, the founder of the World Xiangqi League, VP of Engineering at NetCentric, SVP of Engineering and Product Management at Interleaf. He also did contract programming for the US Air Force, operations research programming for Data General, programming for a medical device company, and even some video game software and sound-effect development.

Paul received a BS and MS in computer science from University of Massachusetts. Paul was named Chief Technology Officer of the year by Mass Technology Leadership Council in 2009.

- http://paulenglish.com/

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