Thought Leader Profile

Tim Stonehocker

CTO, SoundHound

Tim Stonehocker is CTO at SoundHound Inc., which he joined in 2006. SoundHound Inc. turns sound into understanding and actionable meaning, enabling humans to interact with the things around them in the same way we interact with one another: by speaking naturally to mobile phones, cars, TVs, music speakers, coffee machines, and every other part of the emerging "connected" world.

Tim is an experienced software engineer, system architect, and technical leader. Building on his passion for digital audio and search, Tim has focused heavily on the unique challenge of making audio-based searching as fast, accurate, and scalable as text-based searching. He has also contributed to several projects in the domains of natural-language understanding, voice recognition, and moving search technology beyond the "keyword-based" era.

Tim approaches software engineering as an art form, but believes that the elegant solution is not always as beautiful as the pragmatic one. He enjoy algorithms and gravitates toward problems that have never been solved before, or systems that are pushing the limits of what others think is possible.

Tim loves bringing together and leading teams of talented people who are passionate about building disruptive technologies that improve life. Much of his career has been focused on evaluating technical talent and building small teams that are capable of dramatically out-performing much larger teams.

Prior to SoundHound, Tim worked for Amazon.com in Seattle and was also part of the initial team sent to Palo Alto to found A9.com.

Tim holds a bachelor's degree in Computer Science and a master's degree in Music Technology, both from Stanford University.

Outside of work, Tim is a father, husband, son, amateur musician / songwriter, and occasional activist, with a passion for spaces that connect people from diverse backgrounds and break down the typical socioeconomic, education level, ethnic / racial, or ideological walls used to separate "us" from "them."

Speaker at FiRe 2015


Share this: Share on Facebook Tweet about this on Twitter Share on Google+ Share on LinkedIn Email this to someone