About Toni

Hi: I’m Toni Schneider. I live in San Francisco with my wife Diane, kids Sophie, Ben, and Owen, and dogs Pepper and Rufus. My email is t@toni.org.

Work: I work at True Ventures, a seed stage VC firm that invests in startups like Fitbit, Bandcamp, Puppet, npm, Blue Bottle Coffee, and Renovo Motors. I also work on developing new products for Automattic – the company behind WordPress.com – where I used to be CEO. Prior to Automattic, I was an executive at Yahoo! and before that CEO of an award winning startup called Oddpost that was acquired by Yahoo!. I studied Computer Science at Santa Barbara City College and Stanford University. I started my career as a software engineer at Crystal River Engineering where I helped build digital signal processing systems for NASA Virtual Reality simulators.

Please see my resume for details.

Recent photos from my phone:

Childhood: I was born Dec 19, 1969. I grew up in Meilen and Staefa on beautiful lake Zurich in Switzerland. I had a fun childhood in a neighborhood full of kids and a town full of extended family. After high school, I worked as a radio DJ and served in the Swiss military, then moved to California for college. I follow Swiss news on Tagi, NZZ, and Blick.

School: I studied computer science at Santa Barbara City College and Stanford University. I went to high school in Zurich, Switzerland.

Cars: I’m a car nut. I currently drive a biodiesel Toyota Landcruiser BJ60. I’ve owned too many cars to list, but they include a Caterham Super Seven, a Lancia Fulvia HF, a Ferrari 308 GTB, a Maserati Quattroporte, two Triumph TR3s, two Volvo 544s, an Austin Healey, a BMW M3, a Ford Falcon, an Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme, an Opel GT, a Ford Festiva, and a beloved Gurgel. My dream garage is hard for me to decide on, but would include a Ferrari 288 GTO, probably a Lamborghini Countach (early model) or a Lancia Stratos, a nice vintage Land Rover or Jeep, and probably an old 911 or a BMW 3.0 CS, oh and possibly an early 60s Aston Martin, and a 1st generation Golf GTI (Euro spec), and… you see the problem. I follow Bring A Trailer and Petrolicious.

Sports: I played varsity tennis for Santa Barbara City College and enjoy coaching San Francisco Little League baseball. I follow tennis, Giants baseball, and the occasional Formula 1 race. I used to watch a lot of ski races. I follow the Giants on Bleacher Report.

Family tree: Father: Rolf Walter Schneider (1938-1998), Mother: Doris Marie Schneider Hotz (1941-1990), Sister: Isabel McCue (1966), more to come.

Giving back: In addition to supporting the WordPress Foundation through my job, my wife and I support organizations like Human Rights Watch, Youth Art Exchange, the San Francisco Public Library, Level Playing Field Institute, Meritus, the East Bay Center for the Performing Arts, and Lick Wilmerding High School.

My previous about page.