Josh Miller

Work

Just before my senior year, I left Princeton University to build Branch Media, which was backed by the founders of Twitter and Buzzfeed. Our company designed experimental social products, such as Branch and Potluck, that aimed to foster more thoughtful conversations on the internet. Branch's software was embedded within New York Times articles, used by retired Army Generals, and even broke big news about Apple's iPhone design.

In January 2014, Facebook bought Branch. While at Facebook, I worked on the development of new consumer-facing products and features. In August 2015, I left Facebook to accept a role in President Obama's Administration.

Starting in September 2015, I served as the White House's first Director of Product. Of the projects that I created and led, my favorite work included:

• An affordable diaper program for low-income families - it cut prices by over fifty percent for the neediest parents (using a strategy that was economically sustainable for participating businesses). Millions of diapers were shipped to low-income families in the first six months alone, and some non-profits were able to double the number of diapers they could provide with the same amount of funding.
• The first-ever government bot on Facebook, which President Obama has personally responded to messages from. By allowing citizens to message the President on Facebook in the same way that they message their friends, we set new volume records for inbound citizen correspondence.
• A civic engagement initiative that mobilized tens of thousands of Americans to donate (millions) to refugee relief efforts in the Middle East. Working with Kickstarter, Instacart and others, the aim was to make civic engagement as easy as your pushing a single button on your phone. The New York Times dubbed it, "a 21st-century twist on humanitarian assistance" and "a cunning way to work around the do-nothing corridors of official Washington."

As a political appointee, I left the White House in January 2017. For the rest of that year I was an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Thrive Capital, exploring how technology can better serve all Americans. In 2018, I became a full-time Investor at Thrive, incubating and investing in new technology companies.