Biography
Gaurab Bansal leads Responsible Innovation Labs (RIL), a nonprofit built on the conviction that startups can push the frontier and make life better for the people who use, build, and live with the technology they create. RIL is a platform for helping founders build that way before their companies scale. It brings founders together with each other and with investors, policymakers, and labor and civic leaders, and it develops public goods and tools that strengthen the startup ecosystem. RIL builds founder communities across the country, coaches founders on the business decisions that affect workers, customers, and the public, and works with venture investors across the US, Canada, Asia, and Europe. It starts from the reality that many people outside tech do not trust tech right now. Building responsibly is part of how founders keep their companies alive and grow them. Over 25 years, Gaurab has taught on the founding team of an early KIPP public charter middle school, counseled startups as a lawyer, and helped scale the 2012 Obama campaign’s 50-state operation. In the Obama White House, he served as Deputy Assistant to the President, helping lead the White House’s work with the Cabinet on policy implementation and supporting the Administration’s economic, trade, and legislative agenda. He has since advised a family office, a Major League Baseball team, a major research university, and the City of Seattle. He holds a BA from the University of Pennsylvania and a JD from the University of Washington, grew up in Baltimore, and lives in Seattle.
