ZacTownsend.com

Work

I support great founders in the financial technology space at Deciens Capital.

I serve on the San Francisco Symphony board.

I have past government experience as the inaugural Chief Data Officer of California and Senior Technology Policy Advisor to Newark, NJ Mayor Cory Booker. I am a Y Combinator graduate, who built a banking API business called Standard Treasury and sold it to Silicon Valley Bank. I began my work experience as a civic sector consultant at Bennett Midland.

Writing

My writing has appeared in Financial Times, Slate, American Banker, San Francisco Chronicle, The Mecury News, San Francisco Examiner, TechCrunch, BankInnovation, and more:

• With so little data collected, SF can’t be accountable on Prop. C spending — or any other
  San Francisco Chronicle, November 8, 2018.
• Build a public bank in S.F.
  San Francisco Examiner, May 17, 2018.
• Vote your values with your dollars: Support an SF public bank
  San Francisco Chronicle, May 6, 2018.
• Fintech in the US is stymied by old-fashioned regulators
  Financial Times, April 16, 2018.
• Analog Regulators Can’t Keep Up With the Digital Age: To regulate new technologies like self-driving cars, we need new policymaking tools
  Slate, March 28, 2018.
• Regulators need to step up their game to stop tech-based discrimination
  American Banker, March 7, 2018.
• Financial technology matures as government steps in
  TechCrunch, June 19, 2016.
• Tech industry, regulators' relationship needs a reboot
  San Jose Mercury News, March 7, 2016.
• California should take its business to community banks
  San Francisco Chronicle, Sunday Insight section, February 14, 2016.
  (No paywall here on my blog).
• Why I'm Mentoring for America
  Code for America's Blogging for America, November 1, 2013.
• Ultimately, banks are ‘big data’ and technology companies (letter to the editor)
  Financial Times, October 4, 2013 .
• Introducing the idea of an open-source suite for municipal governments
  Harvard Ash Center, December 05, 2012.
• Fairness in Civic Technology and City Services
  Living Cities Blog, December 03, 2012.
• Dreaming Bigger in the Civic Technology Movement
  Living Cities Blog, August 06, 2012.
• The Other Open Source for the Civic Sector
  Google's Policy by the Numbers Blog, May 29, 2012.
• A Job Vital to the State's Poor Goes Unfilled
  Albany Times-Union, November 12, 2011.
• Townsend, Z., Buckley, S. P, Harada, M., Scott, M. A. "The Choice Between Fixed and Random Effects", in The SAGE Handbook of Multilevel Modeling, Scott, M.A., Simonoff, J. and Marx, B.D. (eds.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

I sometimes write on my blog:

• Digital Only: The Challengers Taking on Big Banking in the UK, April 18, 2018.
• Let's Get Organized and Fix Housing Affordability in San Francisco, April 11, 2016.
• Building a Fair and Functioning San Francisco Together, April 5, 2016.
• Broken Promises: The Housing Market in San Francisco (And Ten Ideas to Fix It), March 30, 2016.
• Does the California Fair Pay Act Go Far Enough?, March 15, 2016.
• Analyzing Some (Miscited) Entrepreneurship Research, September 8, 2015.
• Standard Treasury Joins Silicon Valley Bank, August 6, 2015.
• What Business Is Square In Exactly?, July 29, 2015.
• Standard Treasury's Series A Pitch Deck, July 28, 2015.
• My Brief Time Fighting Human Trafficking, March 31, 2015.
• Standard Treasury as a Startup Bank, January 13, 2015.
• My Mental Health Story: Depression, Plagiarism, and Analysis, October 29, 2014.
• Losing 58.3 Lbs For Science, October 10, 2014.
• Building the Next Generation of Financial Infrastructure, August 28, 2014.
• Mental Health, Trauma, and Startup Founders, August 22, 2014.
• Founders and Mental Health, June 16, 2014.
• APIs, App Stores, and the Era of Mass Customization in Banking, April 21, 2014.
• Startup Banking’s Looming Leviathan, April 16, 2014.
• Going Through Y Combinator (S13): Nine Lessons Learned, Mar 4, 2014.
  (Translated in to Japanese)
• Five Lessons from Building A Great Core Team at Standard Treasury, Feb 25, 2014.
• Building A Founding Team at Standard Treasury, Feb 24, 2014.
• The Path Not Taken by Simple (Bank) to Remake Finance, Feb 20, 2014.
  (Republished at Bank Innovation)
• Giving Credit Card Processing Away, Nov 18, 2013.
• A (Successful) YC S13 Application, Oct 18, 2013.
• Advice on the YC Application, Oct 17, 2013.
• Getting in to YC, Oct 15, 2013.
• Why I Invest in Online-to-Offline Businesses, Oct 8, 2013.
• Ultimately, Banks are ‘Big Data’ and Technology Companies, Oct 4, 2013.
  (Republished from the Financial Times)
• Credit Card Processing as a Commodity Business, Sep 27, 2013.
• Credit Card Processing is a Hard Business, Sep 26, 2013.

Contact

Take the first letter of my first name and prepend it to my last name. That's my gmail address.

Media

• Report: What States Are the Best for Data Innovation?
  Government Technology, July 31, 2017.
• CalData Project Seeks to Improve Data Use Across State Agencies
  Government Technology, March 27, 2017.
• Comparing California's Data Officer to Other States
  Techwire.net, September 29, 2016.
• California's Chief Data Officer Discusses Vendors, Innovation and Silicon Valley
  Techwire.net, September 21, 2016.
• California's Open Data Portal Goes Open Source for the Apps
  Route Fifty, September 2, 2016.
• California Launches First True Open Data Portal
  Techwire.net, September 2, 2016. (Also here).
• California Hires First-Ever Chief Data Officer
  Techwire.net, June 30, 2016. (Also here and here).
• Silicon Valley Bank Acquires Standard Treasury:
  • Build Your Own Bank? SVB Lets Customers Do Just That
    The American Banker, August 25, 2015.
  • Silicon Valley Bank Eyes API-Based Banking
    PPYMNTS.com, August 7, 2015.
  • Standard Treasury Hired to Aid Silicon Valley Bank’s API Banking Services
    Payment Week, August 7, 2015.
  • Silicon Valley Bank acqui-hires Y Combinator startup Standard Treasury to evolve digital banking
    Silicon Valley Business Journal, August 6, 2015.
  • Silicon Valley Bank Hires API Startup Team to Expand Digital Banking
    American Banker, August 6, 2015.
  • Silicon Valley Bank Buys API Shop Standard Treasury
    Bank Innovation, August 6, 2015.
  • Silicon Valley Bank acquires startup team to build out API platform
    Finextra Research, August 6, 2015.
  • API Banking Startup, Standard Treasury, Joins Silicon Valley Bank
    Silicon Valley Bank Press Release, August 6, 2015.
• 30 Under 30: Enterprise Tech
  Forbes, January 5, 2015.
  (Also full enterprise tech list, YC list, NYU List).
• 2014 Innovators to Watch
  Bank Innovation, July 1, 2014.
• Standard Treasury Raises $2.7M to Help Banks Deliver Digital Services
  Wall Street Journal Blog, May 29, 2014.
• Top 8 Memes and Themes from Bank Innovation 2014
  Finovate, March 6, 2014.
• 6 Entrepreneur Myths Demystified
  Sofi Blog, January 21, 2014.
• 6 top startup picks from Y Combinator Demo Day
  Silicon Valley Business Journal, August 21, 2013.
• Celebrities (but not Ashton Kutcher) share their top cloud & infrastructure picks at YC
  Venture Beat, August 20, 2013.
• Standard Treasury Wants to Bring Banks into the 21st Century
  Programmable Web, July 23, 2013.
• YC Startup Standard Treasury Plans To Make Millions By Making It Easier For App Developers To Work With Banks
  Business Insider, July 18, 2013
• Standard Treasury Is Set to Close First Clients on Road to ‘Revolutionizing’ Bank Technology
  Bank Innovation, July 12, 2013.
• YC-Backed Standard Treasury Aims To Make Software That Eats Commercial Banking
  TechCrunch, July 9, 2013.