Recommendation from Raph Koster

Recommendations

• “I highly recommend Thor as a gaming company leader. While at Big Time, and formerly at Decentraland, his contributions as VP of Production and CPO were key for the successful development and launch of both virtual worlds. Thor's leadership and unwavering dedication were instrumental in shaping the success of our organization. His strategic mindset and ability to recruit A+ executives allowed us to establish ourselves as one of the strongest teams in the space. I have no doubt that he will continue to excel in any future endeavors he undertakes.” — Ari Meilich, Founder, Big Time Studios

• “Working side-by-side with Thor was one of the best professional experiences I had. His broad understanding of the industry, resourcefulness and creativity were incredibly inspiring. He consistently came up with valuable insights and showed an impeccable work ethic. The number one thing that I admired of him was how he led by example. With a calm voice but a swift pace, Thor improved all the projects he was involved with, set the team for success, and executed flawlessly.” — Esteban Ordano, Advisor, Decentraland

• “Thor is a very-experienced and scrappy game veteran, both with large companies and with small bootstrap companies of his own. I sent Thor to two different substantial projects that were in crisis and he was integral in getting them back on track in one case and refocusing the team to a new project in the other. I like and trust Thor, and recommend him for a wide variety of projects.” — Bill Mooney, Chief Executive Officer, Mystery Works Games

• “Thor was employee number one at Metaplace (after the founders), and was both an excellent manager and a key creative force in shaping the platform in the early heady days of invention. His insights led to the module system, one of the most important features we had, and his leadership of the product design team led to a sizable chunk of our best product demos. If you need someone who can do both steady day-to-day management and also contribute on a creative and technical level, Thor is your guy.” — Raph Koster, Chief Executive Officer, Playable Worlds

• “Thor is one of the most entrepreneurial people I've met. No recruiting help? He'll troll through all of linked in and bring in the best talent with whatever ethical means necessary. No PMs? No problem, he'll learn how to do all the stats himself and do his own analysis and create his own charts. He can source information faster than anyone, from unlikely sources. He's hungry for data. And with his smarts he extracts learnings that others could not see. Thor has an amazing eye for finding talent and opportunities (he's always pondering different business ideas. At any moment he probably has 3 startups baking in his mind). He's also a great manager - helicoptering in when necessary but empowers his leaders to make their own decisions. A natural born producer, he can get 200% out of any person without them knowing it. He's very organized, motivating the team not only by a long-term vision, but regular milestones. He's one of these people who will always be successful because of his entrepreneurial spirit. He has the courage to jump and the smarts to succeed.” — Maureen Fan, CEO, Co-Founder, Board member, Baobab Studios

• “Thor is the reason I worked for so long building MMOs and that I am published with Game Programming Gems (Charles River Media). He is always ahead of the curve and has an eye for talent. I wish we were working together today so I could constantly benefit from his sage advice and predictions.” — Justin Randall, Director of Engineering, Nyan Heroes

• “During the year I spent working under Thor's leadership, I enjoyed the most rapid learning and growth in my career thus far. Starting with my very first shipped software product, I valued that Thor was respectful of development challenges and made it a priority to nurture the team, while also staying in-tune with the business goals and evolving the product. His balance created an environment where creativity could thrive, which made it both exciting and rewarding to work with him. I would often be inspired at the end of some our late and most stressful nights to see Thor still at the office, working out the details of a new product idea to pitch. Thor continued to be a mentor to me throughout the rest of our 3 years together at Zynga. I recommend him as a leader and visionary, with a strong intuition about all aspects of the game development process.” — Chris Antimary, Lead Full Stack Engineer, Series Entertainment

• “Thor worked directly for me on multiple games at Zynga. Thor is excellent at execution and always delivered awesome results when met with challenges. I would be delighted to work with Thor again and have a lot of good things to say about Thor, but here's my short list of things I would recommend Thor for: - Building a product or engineering organization - Managing any technology project with tight deadlines - Leading any social game related endeavor” — Kyle Stewart, Board Member, Jawfish Games

• “I had the pleasure of reporting to Thor on three projects. He was very good at facilitating the talent on his team. He has a finely tuned ability to manage feature road maps, allocate appropriate resources, and identify and solve bottlenecks in pipelines. Thor is also uncanny in his ability to predict outcomes and effect change in product development.” — Jeff Anduza, Senior Manager UI/UX Designer, Electronic Arts (EA)

• “Thor knows how to make games, he understands the business, the processes and pipelines, but mostly he understand the people. He focusses on building great teams and giving them the leverage and tools they need to make great games. His background in programming allows hims to click and empathize right away with the development team, while at the same time he works smoothly with art, game design, production and business departments, putting all the pieces of the puzzle together and creating solid synergy on the team. Working with Thor was great and I would recommend anyone considering working with him to do so, you won't be disappointed.” — Hector Padilla Perez, Director Product Management - Technology, Rush Street Interactive

• “Thor is a great business leader with a solid understanding of game design and development. He is production oriented and was able to work extremely well with multiple functional groups. In particular, he leveraged his background to focus on process improvement in our studio. Thor's ability to drill into the core issues we faced with development and identify solutions was invaluable.” — Lo Toney, Founding Managing Partner, Plexo Capital

• “Thor has a ton of experience in games. What makes him unique, is that he saw the transition to free games and virtual goods happening before most other people in his industry. He joined Zynga early because he had the foresight to see where games were headed and wanted to be part of it. As an executive producer, Thor is extremely organized and a great manager. He's passionate and knows how to lead a team to success while communicating the greater opportunity ahead.” — Justin Waldron, founder, ceo, Playable Intelligence

• “Thor has the rare ability to evaluate the big picture of a project and the industry, while also making sure nothing slips in the details. In our team scrums, he is able to quickly evaluate what is missing or going off vision...and helps direct the team back to quality and timeliness. To me he a masterful leader. Thor seems to be able to understand not only the management side of development, but the small details of every department (Server, client engineering, art, design, etc). It constantly amazes me how connected and knowledgeable he is to every bit of detail. Thor also keeps up with marketting trends and can give a demonstration on how current games are trending at a moments notice. His people skills, intelligence and ability to see the big picture, makes him one of my favorite managers!” — Walter Ianneo, Founder & CEO, Atomic AI Entertainment

• “I have worked with Thor on RCK, developing and then running the online game. He is the ultimate engineer's manager, with a deep understanding of the technology and an engineer's intuition, the vision to drive it to meet product demands, and the experience to predict how the myriad of decisions will end up affecting the game itself. His experience and insights were absolutely crucial to the fast product evolution, and amazingly fast growth of the game. As a leader, Thor also coaches and pushes his team to go beyond their comfort zones, to pursue tougher challenges, and to take on greater roles into which they can then grow. Working with him, I feel that I have grown greatly as a professional.” — Robert Zubek, Principal AI Engineer, Research, NBCUniversal

• “Thor is very organized and drives results through example and hard work. He is very dedicated to his team and will do what it takes to ship product on time.” — Virginia McArthur, CEO Designate / Executive Producer & GM, Gallium Studios

• “Working under Thor was one of the best experiences I could have had when I entered into the Industry. His attention to detail and ability to explain things clearly to others made him a great person to work with. I would highly recommend Thor as an asset to any company looking for someone with industry experience and the ability to work with others.” — Jeff McNab, Design Manager, DIGIT, a Scopely Studio

• “As the Director of Product Management at Metaplace, Thor was one of the best managers I have ever had. His calm and collected approach always kept his team and the project path steady and clear. Thor exhibits every positive aspect of a great leader -- and he runs on awesome!” — Loukia Jessen, Director, Technical Program Management, AT&T

• “Thor is one of the best leaders I've had the opportunity to work with. As a manager, he provides constant and clear feedback; there is no question as to how things are going for the employee, team, and company. Thor is truly multitalented, and is a terrific mentor in almost any area of game development -- if you want to take some time to discuss the internal details of AI code, analyze the user experience as a creative whole, compare and forecast business models, or take stock of project progress and velocity, Thor is great for both exploring the matter at hand and suggesting specific ways an employee can grow as a developer. I would work for Thor again in a New York minute!” — Patrick Ferland, Lead Software Engineer, Blizzard Entertainment

• “Thor is a jack of all trades - he's been a designer, an engineer, a manager, a producer and a book editor. Unlike most career multitaskers, though, Thor is GOOD at all of these roles. In each field, he applies the what he knows to the others, with the result being a strong, well-rounded expertise on almost nearly aspect of game development.” — Damion Schubert, Creative Director, Netflix Games/Boss Fight Entertainment

• “Thor was an outstanding development director on MOH:Airborne. His substantial technical background enabled him to evaluate information coming from the development team and make good, sometimes hard-nosed calls based on those evaluations. He kept politics out of his decision-making, and never lost focus on the final goal - getting a great game onto the shelves.” — Kevin Mack, Chief Technology Officer, Fabletown

• “Thor is one of the most level-headed people that I have ever worked with. He has the ability to consider a broad level of input before making decisions - He does not let any one piece of information dictate the direction he is going without considering everything.” — David Yee, COO, Another Axiom

• “I worked with Thor on Ultima Online 2, when he was the AI programmer, and I was working on game systems. Both of us wrote code in Python and C++, and we shared ideas and collaborated a lot. Thor was easy to work with, and I think we both got a lot out of working together. Later, when I was at NCsoft, Thor became the editor of a book on Massively Multiplayer Online Game development. He solicited articles from me and I was able to contribute four. At that time we worked remotely from each other, communicating exclusively via email, but our work relationship was just as effective and positive as it was back at Origin. Thor is a good guy to work with, and I would work with him again if the opportunity arose.” — Matthew Walker, Principal Software Engineer, Zynga

• “Thor's amazing ability to identify problems and then find innovative solutions to those problems made him an invaluable member of our team. Working with a such a smart, determined, and friendly collaborator was one of the high points of my tenure at Origin. Any team would be lucky to have his expertise and leadership.” — Aaron de Orive, Narrative Director, Fateless Games

• “Thor is especially knowledgeable in AI and game system programming. He's written and edited numerous books on the subject. Highly recommended.” — Tom Gambill, Founder, IARI Technologies - 3D Rendering and Game Engine Technology Consulting

• “Thor is a great guy, with a degree of professionalism that is hard to match.” — Rhett Baldwin, Level Designer, Raven Software

• “Thor loves making critters do really cool things with his mad math skills. He's a mad scientist but there is always method in his madness. Hire him if you need your soldiers, aliens, turtles, tanks, robots, etc. to do what you want.” — Starr Long, Executive Producer, The Acceleration Agency

• “Thor and I worked together for a year on Medal of Honor Airborne. He was a great advocate and mentor for me. He has excellent strategic planning skills and managed to find time for points of iteration and creative feedback even in the tightest of deliverable timelines. He is level-headed in a crisis and unflinchingly honest about progress, performance and milestones. Whether the news is good or bad, Thor will always tell you the truth. He also has an uncanny ability to foresee future pitfalls. Thor was also instrumental in raising the bar for documentation on the team. He pushed the team for specs and to define tests for completion for a feature. In addition to providing clear requirements to developers, this also gave DDs and Producers objective criteria for signing off a feature as “done.” I learned a lot from working with Thor. I’d jump at the chance to work with him again in the future.” — Meg Sheehan, Director of Product, Product Operations, Crisis Text Line

• “Thor is an experienced, forward-thinking games professional. He is constantly exploring new creative spaces in an effort to advance the state of online gaming and social interaction. He has a strong engineering background, keeps abreast of the latest technologies, and always embraces the best tool for the job.” — Jon Parise, Principal Engineer, Airbnb

• “Thor was one of the most interesting programmers with whom I've had the good fortune to work. He has the creative mind of a designer, the pragmatic mind of a programmer and the cohesive viewpoint of an experienced gamer. I've enjoyed many long discussions about gaming, AI, design theory, and the game industry as a whole. I look forward to working with him in the future.” — Artie Rogers, Game Director, KingsIsle Entertainment

• “Thor was a valued team member and strong marketing partner.” — Eric Hartness, Managing Partner, Fog Break Ventures, LLC

• “Thor was a pleasure to work with. He brings an engineer's problem solving discipline to whatever project he's currently working on whether it's creative, technical, or managerial. Thor projects calm in the face of chaos and is able to rally his coworkers to accomplish any task.” — Rade Stojsavljevic, CEO and Co-founder, Imposter Entertainment

• “Thor was a talented DD at EA. He ensured that projects met deadlines and worked with cross functional teams well.” — Helena Lin, Home Educator, Nurturing Minds, Investing in the Future

• “I worked with Thor on a few MMO games at EA. I appreciated Thor's level headed and thoughtful approach to game development. He has a very balanced view of all teams and disciplines involved in overall game production which is very important. If you want to know more, read one of his books on the subject.” — Mike Jones, Director of Operations, Obsidian Peak, LLC

• “Thor is a passionate, detail-oriented developer. He was one of the DD corps on Airborne, and his ability to organize his portion of the team and present information on advancement in digestible format was often the envy of the rest of the DDs; he was a rising star. His passion for a creative outlet was often evident in our discussions and lead him to take a chance on a start up, Areae. I applaud him for taking that risk.” — Chris Busse, Production Director, Lightspeed L.A.

• “I reported to Thor at EALA for some time. He was an excellent manager and I would gladly work with him again. Among Thor's many fine qualities are his ability to keep an even head, even during difficult development conditions, and his insistence on maintaining a balance between the big picture and more immediate needs. He has considerable experience over a broad expanse of game development, and very successfully straddled the technical and managerial realms. Thor realizes that being a manager means managing the development of the project and developing the people you're managing. In this sense, his approach is effective, forward thinking, and ensures long-term success for the team.” — Mike Machowski, Technical Director at Xbox Game Studios Publishing, Microsoft

• “Within the fast paced halls of EA it is good to have someone that is always pushing for the same goals. Thor did a great job bringing the team together to accomplish the task at hand. Working within the team he was focused and honest with the challenges ahead and worked to alleviate any problems. I enjoyed my time on the team with Thor.” — Dan Elggren, Senior Vice President of Product, Core Experience, JobNimbus

• “Thor was a pleasure to work with, he met all deadlines, provided quality material, and added creative and insightful ideas and content. He was very organized and provided great leadership for the project. Jenifer Niles” — Jenifer Niles, Manager, Commercial Product Management, Pearson

• “Who else could take a mundane and boring topic like progress reports and turn them into a fun and entertaining weekly saga? Who else can predict events like production misfires, changes in staff and keep an accurate pulse on the industry? Who else can make consistent proactive leadership decision and bring the most impossible deadlines in for a soft landing with grace, style and sparkling personality? Answer: No one else but THE Thor Alexander. It was a pleasure and a privilege to work along side him at EA and I look forward to working with him again.” — James (H) Dargie, Senior Creative Director, Qiddiya | القدية

• “Thor is an excellent manager with a great approach. He is quick-thinking, versatile in his techniques, and able to adapt to different situations very well. He can always be counted on to deliver results. Additionally, he is very positive in his demeanor at all times and is a pleasure to work with. I would be happy to work with him again in any capacity.”” — Bruce Ferriz, Animation Director, Atomic Arcade

• “Thor, has a good sens of planing and organization, trying to ensure everyone is on the same page at all times. He is very passionate and dedicated to the project he is working on and has always a positive attitude, even during times when things aren't going so well.” — Laurent Chevalier, Lead Engineer, Netflix

• “I found Thor to be a tremendously dedicated DD, committed to getting things done, but still able to maintain perspective.” — Simon Myszko, Technical Director, Electronic Arts Los Angeles

• “I had the pleasure of working with and around Thor for a good year or so, and in that time I found him to be the type of manager I like to work with/for. My first experience with him was when he was the manager for an effort I was a part of that required a very good ear for listening to those of us on the job and a very good head for knowing how to process that information into communication upwards. Though this occasionally put him in tough positions, I feel like he truly understood our various plights and respectfully handled them in appropriate and responsible ways. Another thing I have always respected Thor for was his ability to simply tell things like it is. Whether something is going good or bad, Thor will tell you the truth of things without all of the sugar-coating. Straightforward communication meant that you always knew what was really happening. Ultimately, I believe his honesty made it easier for myself and my fellow developers to trust him as someone we could turn to as both a manager and a colleague.” — TJ Stamm, Founder | Indie Developer | Designer, Talent Tree Games

• “I worked for Thor at EALA during a very difficult project. Thor's willingness to support the sometimes controversial ideas and methods brought forth by his team was critical to the project's success. His extensive experience in the trenches of game engineering allowed him to understand the problems and successfully facilitate solutions.” — ®️Robert Memmott, Software Engineer, Meta

• “When EA needed a Development Director experienced with PC, console and next gen development teams and the obvious challenges to ship a AAA title, we were very fortunate to discover Thor. He was extremely well received in the studio by his team as well as the leadership. As the rapid pace of this business demands, Thor answered to the challenges and delivered. In particular, I enjoyed working with Thor directly to staff his team with top software engineers. His commitment, follow through and partnership made a difference. I look forward to the opportunity to work with Thor again in the future.” — Willy Reese, Recruiting Business Partner, Microsoft

• “Thor was a very trusting, thorough and direct DD on our team. I appreciated his honesty and also his driving work ethic to help us solve the problems we needed to get resolved for our audio team. He helped bridge the gap between the creative and engineering groups. Thor was great to work with and he always had a good attitude and an open mind.” — Leilani Ramirez, MPSE, Head of Dialogue, Arrival

• “During the time I worked with Thor at EALA, I found him to be one of the most insightful development directors working in the building. He often saw problems well before other members of the team which earned him the nickname "The Thor-acle". I would gladly work with Thor again on a future project.” — Michael Saladino, General Manager, Saladino Consulting

• “Thor has always been a pleasure to work with. His hard work and dedication was quite evident in the books he published with Charles River Media. He has a very strong knowledge of the gaming field and would be an asset to any game company.” — Jennifer Blaney, Content Editor, De Gruyter Brill

• “Thor has a deep understanding of game development and is able to inspire greatness in his teams. He sets his team members up for success by collecting the pertinent information from them and defining realistic goals they can hit. He understands the iteration process. When I worked with Thor I felt safe to experiment and be creative.” — Chad LaClair, Expert World Builder, 31st Union

• “Thor was an "engineer's engineer" development director. Thor recognized the importance of adopting classical software development methodologies into the engineering development director process. He encouraged me to hone my skills at requirements gathering, technical design writing and UML usage. It was a joy to work with Thor, and I know I am a better engineer for the experience.” — Tim Ford, Studio Head, Kintsugiyama

• “I enjoyed working with Thor at Origin. He was a thought-leader within the company and drove innovation in his areas of experience. I was impressed with his passion and leadership in his projects. I would definitely recommend Thor to another company.” — Jeffrey Anderson, Investor, Togal.AI

• “Thor is an extremely knowledgeable and competent online games professional.” — Craig Alexander, Studio Head, iwot games

• “I worked alongside Thor at EA Los Angeles on the Medal of Honor: Airborne project. Thor was a pleasure to work with. He was knowledgeable, thoughtful, had a good sense of humor, and displayed sound judgment even during challenging times. The engineers all respected him because (unlike some managers at EALA) he had relevant, recent, real-world game engineering experience to back up his management skills. I'd definitely enjoy working with Thor again in the future.” — Jason Gregory, Lead Programmer, Naughty Dog Inc.