Luke Kanies ’96 was never far from his computer throughout his Reed career. In fact, he once explained to me how our financial aid policies supported his computer hobby (it had something to do aid policies for students who lived off campus). Since then Luke has also become well-known to the Portland software community as the founder and chief executive of a local software start-up, Puppet Labs.
Luke reappeared recently in an Oregonian article, “Puppet Labs pairs open source entrepreneur with Microsoft exec” (Jan. 25, 2014). The article describes how Luke brought Bill Koefoed, an ex-Microsoft executive, in as chief financial officer and refers to the two as an “odd couple,” who bring complementary strengths to their joint enterprise.