Guido van Rossum - Brief Bio

Here's a brief bio that I send to people who ask me for one. You can also use either of the photos above: the one on the left was taken in 2006, the one on the right in 2019. Click for larger versions.

Guido van Rossum is the creator of the Python programming language. He grew up in the Netherlands and studied at the University of Amsterdam, where he graduated with a Master's Degree in Mathematics and Computer Science. His first job after college was as a programmer at CWI, where he worked on the ABC language, the Amoeba distributed operating system, and a variety of multimedia projects. During this time he created Python as side project. He then moved to the United States to take a job at a non-profit research lab in Virginia, married a Texan, worked for several other startups, and moved to California. In 2005 he joined Google, where he obtained the rank of Senior Staff Engineer, and in 2013 he started working for Dropbox as a Principal Engineer. In October 2019 he retired. After a short retirement he joined Microsoft as Distinguished Engineer in 2020. Until 2018 he was Python's BDFL (Benevolent Dictator For Life), and he is still deeply involved in the Python community. Guido and his family live in Silicon Valley, where they love hiking, biking and birding.

Shorter:

Guido van Rossum created Python in 1990 while working at CWI in Amsterdam. He was the language's BDFL until he stepped down in 2018. He has held various tech jobs, including Senior Staff Engineer at Google and Principal Engineer at Dropbox. He is currently a Distinguished Engineer at Microsoft, where he is still actively involved in Python's development. Born and raised in the Netherlands, he moved to the US in 1995 and currently lives with his family in the Bay Area.

Guido's home on the web is http://www.python.org/~guido/.

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