Richard Hearn Hi, my name is Richard Hearn.
Founder. Operator. Investor.
I founded Crown (acquired by Publicis/Razorfish), then ran Razorfish Commerce as Global President. From there I led IBM's $1.5B Watson Customer Engagement business, then CEO'd PE-backed FPX through a turnaround and exit. Today I'm Founder & General Partner at Bambu Capital, where my partners and I bring the operator playbook to undervalued software companies — and I chair Lemonaid Health, one of our portfolio companies, rebuilding primary care around patients.
Mechanical engineer by training (Purdue), MBA (Ohio State).
This site is where I think out loud about all of it. Four buckets: Business is the work. Think is the bigger questions. Drive is the road, the boat, the speed. Play is the family, the trips, the absurd.
A decade in AI
I've been building on AI since 2016, starting with IBM Watson.
In 2016 I joined IBM to run global revenue and product for Watson Customer Engagement, a $1.5B software business assembled from 14 acquisitions. Fourteen separate products, sold and built as fourteen separate things. We turned it around by integrating them into one suite and building it on top of Watson AI.
That was an AI layer over a stack of software, years before anyone called it that. It is the same idea I write about now in Nobody Is Ripping Anything Out.
"Richard is the Magic Johnson of technology executives — balances ego with humility, and focuses on the team."
RichardGPT · richardhearn.ai
Talk to my digital twin.
A digital twin trained on 20,000+ hours of my journaling, reflection, and war in the trenches: business, love, addiction, growth. Use it when you need a blunt answer, practical wisdom, or a mirror that won't lie to you.
No more generic ChatGPTs.
The four streams
Same site, four lanes. Pick what you're here for.
Business
What I'm building & backing
Operating notes from Bambu, lessons from selling Crown, and the side projects (Bonfiyah, others) I can't help but ship.
- Bring the engineer
- Salesforce says the UI is going away
- The platforms are buying their AI
Think
The bigger questions
Parenting, ADD, status quo, ambition, the rules worth breaking. What I'd tell my kids if they actually listened.
- The King You Never Chose
- Guess Who Becomes AI Native
- AI Decides How. Humans Decide What, Why, and If.
Drive
The road and the water
~30 years of powerboat racing, road trips, GoPro footage, and the Hall-of-Champions name I grew up under.
- I've fallen in love...
- Congrats Dad -- Highest Award in APBA
- Grant Hall of Champions 2013
Play
Family, trips, the absurd
Disney mishaps, JetSurf in Kauai, fundraisers, and the things you do because life is short and the kids are small.
- Life as a game of Candy Crush.!?!?
- Pictures
- Walt Disney Delivers a Doh & a Smile
Recent
A mix from all four streams. Newest first.
Four hand-crafted color schemes
Tap one — the whole site recolors instantly (or use the swatches up in the header), and your pick is remembered next visit. The same four ship in the Bonfiyah app.
About
The longer version, for anyone who's curious.
I'm a serial entrepreneur and global Fortune 500 executive. I've founded and led startups and billion-dollar businesses in the marketing, commerce, SaaS, and SI/agency worlds.
I was Founder & CEO of Crown (acquired by Publicis/Razorfish — M&A Advisor's 2014 Deal of the Year). After Razorfish I served as Global President of Razorfish Commerce, then went to IBM as GM of Global Revenue & Product for the $1.5B Watson Customer Engagement business. Most recently I was CEO of PE-backed FPX, a B2B Commerce SaaS company, through a turnaround and successful exit.
Today I'm Founder & General Partner at Bambu Capital — a growth PE firm focused on undervalued software and tech-enabled services. I also chair Lemonaid Health, one of our portfolio companies, rebuilding primary care around patients. On the side, I tinker on a handful of small projects — the biggest of which is Bonfiyah (bonfiyah.com), an AI conversation-memory app for iPhone, iPad & Mac that records in-person conversations, learns each voice, and remembers who promised what. It's live on the App Store.
Recognition
Contact
Easiest way to reach me is email. I read everything.