Overview

Gender

male

Investor Type

Investment Partner,Angel

Investor Stage

Early stage Venture,Seed

Bruce Leak is a Co-Founder, Founding Partner, and General Partner at Playground Global. From an early age, his intellectual curiosity led to a fascination with computers and emerging technology and later informed his career path which took him from the frontier days of Apple and Microsoft to entrepreneurship, to his time at Playground investing in complex ideas with the potential to change the world.

With a Master’s in Electrical Engineering from Stanford, Bruce spent two summer internships at Microsoft. There, he tested an early prototype of Microsoft Word for the original IBM PC and later worked on the first versions of Microsoft’s Macintosh applications.

His first full-time role was with Apple’s System Software team where he led the company’s efforts on 32-bit Color Quickdraw which became the foundation of true color display on Mac screens and led to the birth of Quicktime. Bruce spent five years at Apple expanding the Quicktime team, shipping several versions of the product, and speaking at developer conferences.

Bruce was later recruited by Steve Perlman to General Magic, and they set out to build a color version of the platform for gaming. In 1993, Bruce joined forces with Peter Barrett and Steve Blank to form Rocket Science Games, where he hired many members of the Quicktime team, supported developers, and built the gaming platform.

Bruce’s next venture was WebTV, which he founded with two General Magic alumni, Steve Perlman and Phil Goldman. WebTV was acquired by Microsoft and the company went on to ship the first DVR products for Echostar and DirectTV.

After founding several startups selling technology and services to mobile phone operators and automotive OEMs and traveling the world, Bruce joined Andy Rubin, Peter Barrett, and Matt Hershenson to found Playground Global—the venture capital firm they wish existed when they were building their own companies. From robotics to quantum computing to groundbreaking medical advancements, Playground’s true north is leaving a lasting impact for generations to come.

Bruce lives in Palo Alto and can still be found adventuring outdoors by kayak and by land. He is passionate about wildlife conservation, preserving natural habitats, and supporting animal sanctuaries.