Rizwan Virk
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Mail code: 6002Campus: Poly
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A graduate of MIT and Stanford, Rizwan Virk is a successful entrepreneur, video game pioneer, film producer, venture capitalist, computer scientist and bestselling author. Virk is currently doing doctoral research at the Center for Science and the Imagination (CSI) and teaching classes on the Metaverse, Innovation and Simulation Theory at the College of Global Futures and the Fulton Schools of Engineering at Arizona State University.
His books include The Simulation Hypothesis, Startup Myths & Models: What You Won't Learn in Business School, Wisdom of a Yogi, The Simulated Multiverse, Treasure Hunt and Zen Entrepreneurship.
Virk founded Play Labs @ MIT, a startup accelerator, and invested in many successful startups including Discord, Theta Labs, Upland and Tapjoy. His startups created video games played by millions, including Tap Fish and games based on Game of Thrones, Star Trek, The Walking Dead, Grimm and Penny Dreadful. Virk and his books have been featured in Forbes, The Telegraph, NBC News, vox.com, Techcrunch, Inc., VentureBeat, Digital Trends, BBC Science Focus, and Scientific American, CBS, the CBC, Coast to Coast AM and The History Channel. He has been a speaker and mentor ranging from MIT’s $100k Business Plan Competition and Delta V accelerator to 500 Startups, Talks @ Google and GamesBeat in Silicon Valley.
Virk is currently a venture partner at Griffin Gaming Partners, one of the leading video game VC funds in the world, Manager at Bayview Capital, and a board member at North Bay Solutions, a leading AWS partner.
Follow him @rizstanford, @rizcambridge, and at zenentrepreneur.com.
S.B. Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, MIT
S. M. Management, Graduate School of Business (GSB), Stanford University
Ph.D., Human and Social Dimensions of Science and Technology, SFIS, College of Global Futures, Arizona State University (2025)
