Capital, crystallized
around the next
generation of AI
developer platforms.

Rick started as a software engineer at Microsoft and grew into the role of General Manager of what became Visual Studio Team System. As employee #1 on the effort, he built the organization from scratch into a 500-person global team and a product line that grew into a $500M+ business.

During his 19+ years at Microsoft, Rick served as Group Program Manager of the Visual C++ product contributing to language strategy that influenced the direction of C++, led engineering teams that built internal systems deployed companywide, and helped identify language migration strategies for the transition to .NET. He also filled the Microsoft board seat at ArtInSoft, the San José, Costa Rica–based migration technology company in which Microsoft was a major investor.

Rick later joined Mobilize.Net as Chief Product Officer, where he led the creation of a new product line that grew to $10M in annual revenue. He concurrently served as a Board Member and Technology Committee leader, working with the CEO and board to reposition the company from a consulting firm into a software and IP company, secure internal funding for the new direction, build early strategic partnerships, and help guide the company through its 2023 sale to Snowflake.

He holds a degree in Organizational Leadership from the University of Wyoming and studied computer science at Gonzaga University and Seattle Pacific University before joining Microsoft. He holds multiple developer tool related patents, was named a Microsoft Partner in 2005, and is a founding owner of two craft breweries.

Rick is a General Partner at BlackDiamond Ventures, working with founders building companies in AI. He brings 30+ years across enterprise software, cloud platforms, and developer infrastructure.

He graduated from the University of Washington with a Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, where he also caught passes for the varsity football team. He is an accomplished ocean-going sailor.

He spent 19 years at Microsoft in the Developer and SQL Server divisions, where he helped deliver software used by developers and enterprises worldwide. His work there earned Microsoft's Chairman's Award. During that time he built engineering organizations that shipped on schedule at large scale.

After Microsoft, Rick joined Mobilize.Net, a startup focused on large-scale software modernization. As a senior technical leader and board advisor, he supported customers modernizing mission-critical systems and helped position the company through its acquisition phase.

He then joined Snowflake, where his work focused on data and application migration, helping organizations move complex systems onto modern cloud platforms. Across these roles he built expertise in platform engineering, CI/CD pipelines, reliability, and security.

As a venture partner, Rick works closely with leadership teams on common inflection points including scalability, delivery predictability, and the long-term impact of technical debt, and on building engineering cultures that balance speed, quality, and sustainability.

Tom is Co-Founder and General Partner of BlackDiamond Ventures (2024–present), investing in early-stage AI companies and providing technical, operational, and strategic guidance to software startups and funds evaluating software investments.

He founded Mobilize.Net in 2012 by acquiring the assets of ArtInSoft and pivoted the company to source-code translation and modernization of business app and data assets to cloud native architectures. After a nine-month reset, Mobilize.Net booked ten consecutive quarters at 85% CAGR resulting in 10X revenue growth, 8x headcount growth producing 62% gross margin and 16% EBITDA, organically, with no equity dilution while retiring all debt.

As Chairman from 2020 to 2023, Tom managed a two-stage exit: an asset sale of the app migration unit to Growth Acceleration Partners, followed by a 100% equity sale of Mobilize.Net to Snowflake in 2023. The transactions returned a minimum of 10x to shareholders with zero layoffs across both events. He then led the post-acquisition integration into Snowflake.

Before Mobilize.Net, Tom spent 19 years at Microsoft (1988–2007), most recently as Corporate Vice President of Platform Technology & Strategy and previously Corporate VP of Windows Product Management, where he ran a 150-person team managing a $500M marketing budget, driving $2 billion in Windows revenue growth over those two years. Earlier roles included Corporate VP for Visual Studio .NET 1.0, GM of Developer Tools, Product Unit Manager for Visual Studio 1.0, and Director of Marketing for the Developer Division — shipping Visual Basic 1.0–6.0, Visual C++, Visual J++, the Microsoft Developer Network, and Visual Studio .NET 1.0/1.1, growing Microsoft's developer tools to industry dominance while increasing revenue over 500% to $700M+ during this period. He started at Microsoft as Program Manager for QuickBasic and the BASIC Compiler, shipping QBasic in MS-DOS, QB4.5, and Visual Basic for MS-DOS.

Board service includes Chairman of Mobilize.Net (exit to Snowflake), Board Director of Itineris (Bruges, 2014–2024, exit to PE firm Cobepa) and ArtInSoft (San José, Costa Rica, 2008–2012, exit to Mobilize.Net), and advisor to Glympse, Corensic/PetraVM, and Photon Machines (exit to Teledyne). Earlier in his career he was an Associate Consultant for The Boston Consulting Group (1987–1988) and a Marketing Representative and Advanced Processor Performance Analyst at IBM (1985–1986).

Tom also owns Buttonwood Farm (2007–present), a certified-organic, carbon-negative Christmas tree farm in the Pacific Northwest. He is an Eagle Scout, nationally licensed soccer coach, and holds 6 US patents.