Marvin Ammori was most recently the Chief Legal Officer of Uniswap Labs. He was previously the general counsel of two other venture-backed companies. Before going in-house, Mr. Ammori was Silicon Valley’s “go-to First Amendment guy,” according to Fast Company, and represented Apple, Google, and Dropbox on signature public policy fights. He graduated with honors from the University of Michigan and with honors from Harvard Law School.
Chief Legal Officer/General Counsel: Ammori was the seventh employee and first executive at Uniswap Labs, a company backed by A16z, Union Square Ventures, Paradigm, and others. Ammori drove key executive hires, supported product and business leadership, led litigation and public policy, and helped grow the company to over 100 employees and a $1.7 billion valuation. Previously, he was the head lawyer of two other companies, Protocol Labs and Virgin Hyperloop One.
Internet Freedom: Reviewing the decade-long fight for net neutrality in 2015, Salon’s Matt Stoller wrote, “if there’s one person who really operated with superb strategic insight and tenacity this whole time, it would be superlawyer Marvin Ammori.” U.S. Senator Angus King has said, “I think probably more than anyone in the country he is the father of net neutrality.” Mr. Ammori was the key organizational and intellectual force behind the FCC’s Comcast/BitTorrent decision protecting net neutrality in 2008 (Ammori authored the complaint and argued the case before the DC Circuit). Gigi Sohn called the FCC decision the biggest public interest telecom victory in 20 years and Harvard professor Larry Lessig said he had read no government decisions that were “more subtle and sophisticated in their understanding of the Internet.” Mr. Ammori was also the key advocate behind the White House and FCC’s decision to back strong “Title II” rules in 2015. Etsy CEO Chad Dickerson has called him the “net neutrality whisperer”; Columbia law professor Tim Wu, who coined the phrase net neutrality, wrote that Ammori “deserves enormous credit for leading the march to Title II”; and Kickstarter’s communications head declared that, “No one deserves more credit for the Net neutrality victory than” Ammori. Ammori also helped lead the movement that killed the proposed SOPA bill in 2012 with an “Internet Blackout.”
Fellowships and Boards: Ammori co-founded and served as a founding board member and, later, board president of the Blockchain Association, the crypto industry’s top trade association, which now represents over 100 companies. Before going in-house, Ammori served as a Future Tense and Schwartz Fellow at New America, one of the nation’s most prominent think tanks, and as a Senior Fellow to the Democracy Fund. He served on the boards of the nonprofit advocacy groups Fight for the Future, Demand Progress, and of Engine Advocacy. He also serves as an Affiliate Scholar of the Stanford Law School Center for Internet & Society. Ammori was a Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a Fellow of the Americas Business Council Foundation.
Writings and Talks: Ammori has published articles in the New York Times, USA Today, the Atlantic, Wired, Slate, Forbes, and the Harvard Law Review. He has appeared as an expert on CNN, MSNBC, ABC, NPR, and other TV and radio outlets. Ammori has also keynoted conferences in Germany, Portugal, Brussels, Taiwan; he has spoken at TEDx U-Michigan, three Federalist Society National Lawyer Conventions, and has testified before several government bodies globally. He was also an advisor to the final season of HBO’s hit TV show, “Silicon Valley.”
Recognition: Mr. Ammori has been named to Politico 50’s “list of thinkers, doers, and dreamers” who are “transforming politics,” Fast Company Magazine’s “100 Most Creative People in Business,” and Washingtonian Magazine’s list of “Tech Titans.” His work has been the subject of front-page profiles in the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and also profiled in the Atlantic and Fortune.
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