Investment focus

Companies

Peter Barrett

Investment focus

Companies

Peter Barrett is best known today as co-founder and general partner of Playground Global. He believes the computing revolution—and arguably even the industrial revolution—hasn’t happened yet. He is drawn to the toughest challenges at the boundaries of deep tech and hard science.

Peter has been writing software since he was a teenager. At 19, his first security program caught the attention of the NSA. From his first company, Rocket Science Games, he’s had an adventurous career in technology from creating the first widely used video codec in the early 90s, building the world’s most popular IPTV platform at Microsoft, cloud intelligence for automotive at CloudCar, and now quantum and optical computing, robotics and artificial intelligence at Playground. He holds over 100 patents.

At Playground, Peter delights in the opportunity to deeply collaborate with entrepreneurs and help create transformative companies with multigenerational impact. He thrives on technologies that lie somewhere between improbable and impossible and companies whose success will help move civilization forward.

Peter lives in Palo Alto with his wife, two children, a surly cat, and a friendly dog.

World Economic Forum Global Leaders for Tomorrow – 1996