Mike Belshe

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Mike Belshe (born 1971) is an American computer scientist and entrepreneur. He's a co-founder and CEO of BitGo, Inc. [1] and a cofounder of Lookout Software in 2004. [2] He is the co-inventor of the SPDY protocol and one of the principal authors of the HTTP/2.0 specification.

Contents

Early life and education

Belshe received his bachelor's degree in computer science from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo.

He is also an inventor with over 10 technology patents.

He is a lifelong Bay Area resident and grew up just outside of Berkeley.

Career

Belshe started his career at Hewlett-Packard, followed by Silicon Valley startup Netscape Communications Corp., where he worked on the Netscape Enterprise Server. [3] where he worked closely with Ben Horowitz as one of the critical engineers on the Netscape Enterprise Server.

After Netscape he joined Good Technology before co-founding Lookout Software with Eric Hahn. [4] Microsoft eventually acquired Lookout and it became a key feature of Outlook.

Joining in 2006, he was one the early hires on the Google Chrome team, [5] and was part of the Google Chrome Comic. [6] As part of the Chrome team he worked on protocol research, [7] and later co-authored the SPDY protocol. [8] He submitted SPDY to the IETF in 2011, and was an author of HTTP/2. [7]

As part of the IETF standardization effort, Belshe argued for encryption by default within the protocol. [9] [10] The encrypted-by-default approach was later adopted by all major browsers.

Mike went on to co-found the industry-leading cryptocurrency company, BitGo, in 2013. He was quickly named CEO.

In July 2024, Mike Belshe, CEO of BitGo, hosted a fundraiser for Donald Trump's presidential campaign, featuring running mate JD Vance. Additionally, in March 2025, BitGo was appointed as the custodian for USD1, a stable coin launched by World Liberty Financial, a crypto project backed by Donald Trump. [11] [12]

Blog

Mike Belshe has maintained a tech blog since 2003 where he shares his perspective on a number of topics. [13] [14]

Politics

Mike has advocated for GOP candidates and staunchly supports clear regulation within the Bitcoin and crypto industry. He firmly believes in allowing capitalism to thrive in emerging industries. [15]

In the leadup to the 2024 Presidential election, he hosted JD Vance for a fundraiser in Palo Alto. [16] [17]

References

  1. ↑ "Mike Belshe, Bitgo Inc: Profile and Biography". Bloomberg.com. Retrieved November 7, 2023.
  2. ↑ Evers, Joris. July 16, 2004. "Microsoft Scoops Up Search Company". PCWorld.
  3. ↑ O’Reilly Velocity Conference. June 16, 2011. "Mike Belshe Archived 2015-09-24 at the Wayback Machine ". O’Reilly Velocity Conference Archived September 8, 2015, at the Wayback Machine .
  4. ↑ Belshe, Mike. August 4, 2015. "About [ permanent dead link ]". Mike's Lookout.
  5. ↑ Chan, Min Li. December 3, 2009. "Technically speaking, what makes Google Chrome fast?". Chromium Blog.
  6. ↑ Google, Inc.; McCloud, Scott. September 1, 2008. "Google Chrome Comic". Google, Inc.
  7. 1 2 Belshe, M.; Peon, R.; Thomson, M.; Melnikov, A.. 2015–5. "Hypertext Transfer Protocol Version 2 (HTTP/2)". Internet Engineering Task Force.
  8. ↑ O’Reilly Velocity Conference. June 16, 2011. "Mike Belshe Archived 2015-09-24 at the Wayback Machine ". O’Reilly Velocity Conference Archived September 8, 2015, at the Wayback Machine .
  9. ↑ "Next version of the web will have resistance to surveillance at its core | Naked Security". August 24, 2013. Retrieved December 18, 2015.
  10. ↑ "SPDY and What to Consider for HTTP/2.0". February 17, 2013.{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  11. ↑ Liedtka, Dave; Nicolle, Emily. "Trump's crypto project to offer dollar-tracking stablecoin". techxplore.com. Retrieved April 2, 2025.
  12. ↑ Schmitt, Will (March 25, 2025). "Crypto group backed by Donald Trump to launch stablecoin". Financial Times. Retrieved April 2, 2025.
  13. ↑ "SPDYing Up the Web – Communications of the ACM". December 1, 2012. Retrieved April 6, 2025.
  14. ↑ Magazine, Bitcoin (December 1, 2015). "BitGo's Mike Belshe On Doing What Matters". bitcoinmagazine.com. Retrieved April 6, 2025.
  15. ↑ "Who is Mike Belshe, the cryptocurrency executive hosting JD Vance fundraiser in Palo Alto?". Silicon Valley. July 29, 2024. Retrieved April 6, 2025.
  16. ↑ Margulis, Arden (July 30, 2024). "Vice presidential nominee JD Vance visits East Palo Alto for fundraiser". The Almanac. Retrieved April 6, 2025.
  17. ↑ Favro, Marianne; Trujillo, Damian; McSweeney • •, Terry (July 28, 2024). "JD Vance visits Silicon Valley elite for fundraiser". NBC Bay Area. Retrieved April 6, 2025.
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