Family · software · running

About

I’m Brian R. Bondy. I co-founded Brave Software, where I serve as CTO and a member of the board. I live in Belle River, Ontario, with my wife, Shannon, our three sons, and a household of animals with excellent names.

Get in touch Work & career
Brian and Shannon Bondy with their three sons
A favourite family photo. The boys are much taller now.

My centre of gravity

Family & home

Family is my raison d’être. Everything else, including companies, code, races, and projects, fits around Shannon, Link, Ronnie, and Asher.

Shannon is my better half, and I’m a proud father of twin boys and a singleton: Link, Ronnie, and Asher.

I was born and raised on a farm, which is where I trace much of my work ethic. These days we live in Belle River, Ontario. I’m a homebody at heart, though I like getting out when there is something worth doing or a trail worth disappearing down for a while.

Nymeria, Nym for short, is our Australian Shepherd, named after the direwolf in Game of Thrones. Our family also includes two cats named Remy and Emile. Before Nym, there was Leia, our red tri-coloured border collie, named after Princess Leia from Star Wars.

Brian with his son Ronnie when Ronnie was young
Ronnie and me, a while ago.

Three decades and counting

Building software

I’ve been programming for more than 30 years, with most of that time spent on browsers, systems, security, privacy, and products that have to work in the real world. I enjoy turning ideas into working systems, learning whatever is needed along the way, and staying close enough to the code to understand the details.

Since 2015

Co-founder & CTO, Brave Software

I co-founded Brave with Brendan Eich, the creator of JavaScript and co-founder of Mozilla. I help lead the company and its engineering while remaining hands-on in architecture and implementation.

Read the concise resume

Before Brave

Browsers, learning, and products

I worked at Mozilla and Khan Academy, and my wider history includes Evernote and years spent co-founding and building ROBOBAK and VisionWorks Solutions.

The toolbox

Languages & systems

C++, Python, Rust, Go, C#, and JavaScript, with a continuing interest in browsers, AI, operating systems, networking, privacy, and security.

Foundations

Waterloo & lifelong learning

I earned an Honours Bachelor of Mathematics in Computer Science from the University of Waterloo. Salman Khan remains my favourite teacher, and I try to stay a lifelong learner.

Full career & technical archive Selected projects

Mornings and long distances

Running

Brian finishing the Tahoe 200 endurance run
Finishing the Tahoe 200 in 2025.

I run most mornings, usually with an audiobook. Some of those runs are multi-day races.

My longest outing so far was the 2024 Cocodona 250: 264.7 miles (about 426 km) through Arizona. I’ve finished Cocodona twice, completed the Tahoe 200 in 2025, and spent a lot of time in backyard ultras learning how much further “done” can move.

I love pushing against a limit, discovering that it was temporary, and sharing some of those miles with my sons.

Explore the running history

Odds and ends

A personal index

A few smaller things worth mentioning.

Habits & temperament

  • I’m an avid coffee drinker and still spill it on myself surprisingly often.
  • I have a thirst for knowledge and enjoy being challenged.
  • I try to welcome the whole range: difficult things that demand growth, and ordinary or easy moments that are worth appreciating as they are.
  • I’m a homebody who likes to use time constructively.
  • Reading spans new technology, business, self-improvement, and fiction, often by audiobook while running.

Favourite things

  • Music: Ray Charles.
  • Movies: Braveheart, The Last Samurai, and Ray.
  • TV: Futurama, Game of Thrones, Norsemen, South Park, The Simpsons, and Survivor.
  • Stage: Monty Python’s Spamalot, The Phantom of the Opera, Les Misérables, Hadestown, and Dear Evan Hansen.
  • Local Chinese food: Red Sun. Coffee stop: Starbucks.

Milestones

  • Black belt (Shodan) in Meibukan Goju-Ryu karate.
  • Former Gecko engineer. Gecko is the engine behind Firefox.
  • Co-founded ROBOBAK and VisionWorks Solutions before Brave.
  • University of Waterloo Computer Science graduate from the Faculty of Mathematics.
  • Three 200+ mile race finishes: Cocodona in 2023 and 2024, and the Tahoe 200 in 2025.
  • Microsoft MVP for Visual C++, July 2010–July 2011.

Still chasing

  • Building a serious future submission for the Hutter Prize.
  • Seeing more of the world at 200+ mile races.
  • Continuing to find and move my limits.
  • Learning enough to keep the next hard problem interesting.

Keep exploring

More of the story is scattered around the site.

You can browse my collected advice, the books I’ve read, my projects, or the long version of my career history.

Contact me