Willem Van Lancker

Last updated
Willem Van Lancker
Born
Providence, Rhode Island, US
Alma mater Moses Brown School, Rhode Island School of Design
OccupationsHead of Incubations at Thrive Capital, Former Co-founder & Chief Product Officer of Oyster
Website www.willemvanlancker.com

Willem Van Lancker is an American entrepreneur and product designer, who is best known for being the co-founder and Chief Product Officer of ebooks company Oyster. [1] [2] [3] He is currently the Head of Incubations at Thrive Capital, a technology investment firm based in New York City. [4]

Contents

Biography

Willem Van Lancker was born in Providence, Rhode Island. He attended the private high school Moses Brown School, where he was named the 2016 Outstanding Young Alumnus. [5] [6] Van Lancker received a BFA degree in Graphic Design in 2011 from Rhode Island School of Design. [7] He briefly attended Harvard Business School for graduate courses but did not complete his degree. [8] It was at Harvard Business School where he met Eric Stromberg, one of the future co-founders of Oyster. [8]

He began his career at Adidas in 2008 as an intern. [1] Van Lancker later interned at Apple in 2009 where he helped create Apple's emoji. [9] From 2010 until 2012, Van Lancker was a user experience designer for Google Maps where he worked on Google Maps for iOS and "The New Google Maps." [10] [8] [11] Oyster was founded in 2012 by Van Lancker, Eric Stromberg and Andrew Brown. [2] After Oyster was acquired by Google in 2015, Van Lancker and the rest of the staff moved to Google. [12]

Van Lancker was named one of Forbes Magazine's 30 Under 30 in 2015. [1] [13]

On April 6, 2022, Rhode Island Governor Daniel McKee announced that Rhode Island's new license plate was designed by Van Lancker after the state held an open call for entries for a new design. The design features 5 waves. [14]

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Willem Van Lancker, 27". Forbes. 2015. Retrieved 2021-01-27.
  2. 1 2 Hamburger, Ellis (2014-11-05). "The future of books is on your phone, not your tablet". The Verge. Retrieved 2021-01-27.
  3. ↑ "Oyster Raises $3M From Founders Fund To Finally Create An Unlimited Subscription Service For Books". TechCrunch. 10 October 2012. Retrieved 2021-01-27.
  4. ↑ "Thrive Capital". thrivecap.com. Retrieved 2022-11-14.
  5. ↑ "MB Cupola fall 2014 / winter 2015: Design Thinking". Issuu. Moses Brown School. Fall 2014. p. 19. Retrieved 2021-01-27.
  6. ↑ "MB Cupola: People (Fall 2016) by Moses Brown School - Issuu". issuu.com. Retrieved 2022-11-14.
  7. ↑ "Modi Among Top Tech Designers". Our RISD, Rhode Island School of Design. Retrieved 2021-01-27.
  8. 1 2 3 D'Onfro, Jillian. "How e-book startup Oyster plans to be the 'Amazon lolol of the next 10 years'". Business Insider. Retrieved 2021-01-27. Oyster is the brainchild of Van Lancker, formerly a Google user experience designer and now chief product officer
  9. ↑ Coscarelli, Joe (2012-12-09). "The Proliferation of Emoji". New York Magazine. Archived from the original on 2012-12-12. Retrieved 2021-01-27.
  10. ↑ Parfeni, Lucian (30 September 2011). "The Google Maps Pin Gets Modernized, Maps Sports a Fresh New Look (Screenshots)". softpedia. Retrieved 2021-01-27.
  11. ↑ Rosen, Rebecca J. (2012-01-11). "How Do You Build an Interactive, Clear, and Detailed Map of the Whole World?". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2021-01-27. explains Willem Van Lancker and Jonah Jones, two user experience and visual designers on the Google Maps team
  12. ↑ "E-book service Oyster closes down as much of its staff heads to Google". GeekWire. 2015-09-22. Retrieved 2021-01-27.
  13. ↑ "Profile: Willem Van Lancker, Cofounder". Forbes. 2015.
  14. ↑ Farzan, Antonia Noori (6 April 2022). "Here's what will replace the wave on Rhode Island's license plates". The Providence Journal. Retrieved 7 April 2022.
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