Happy Birthday, Shaun Modi

The Story So Far

41 years of designing the future

Designer · Builder · Visionary

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Founder & CEO of Capitol AI

Building the sovereign operating system for intelligence, backed by Y Combinator (S24), transforming how institutions make high-stakes decisions with AI-powered insights.

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Founding Designer at Airbnb

Helped shape the customer journey alongside CEO Brian Chesky during the early days of a company now worth over $100 billion. Talk about designing for impact.

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First Job? Literally Rocket Science

Designed interior environments for NASA's lunar ascent module and lunar base as part of the Constellation program to return humans to the Moon.

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RISD-Trained, Design in His DNA

BFA in Industrial Design from the Rhode Island School of Design ('07), with additional studies at MIT Sloan. Both parents were designers — creativity runs in the family.

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From the White House to WIRED

Co-authored an op-ed with Congressman Ro Khanna in WIRED advocating for a Federal Chief Experience Officer, and served as a Strategic Advisor for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and DHS.

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Top 75 Designers in Technology

Named by Business Insider with 17+ years of experience spanning Google, NASA, Airbnb, the U.S. Department of Defense, and his own design firm TM, where he launched over 55 products.

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A Builder Since Day One

Started coding as a teenager, launched his first business before finishing high school, and lives by the belief that "empathy for other humans is the lifeblood of design."