# Kyle Spearrin, founder and CIO

Kyle is the founder and chief innovation officer of Bitwarden, where he focuses on developing new security products and technologies while helping shape the future of the product portfolio. Before Bitwarden, Kyle was a software architect and engineering lead at Global Payments, where he focused on cloud infrastructure, mobile applications, and security for credit card processing. Kyle previously founded companies in hosting and web services and has been a builder of online tools since he started organizing gaming communities in high school. Kyle holds a bachelor's degree in Computer Science from the University of Florida.

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### Kyle Spearrin, founder and CIO

Kyle is the founder and chief innovation officer of Bitwarden, where he focuses on developing new security products and technologies while helping shape the future of the product portfolio. Before Bitwarden, Kyle was a software architect and engineering lead at Global Payments, where he focused on cloud infrastructure, mobile applications, and security for credit card processing. Kyle previously founded companies in hosting and web services and has been a builder of online tools since he started organizing gaming communities in high school. Kyle holds a bachelor's degree in Computer Science from the University of Florida.

![Kyle Spearrin headshot](https://bitwarden.com/assets/7itGrnGalOkFhrdfSvmknS/9e22f9d60480971781e1418d863fdbec/Kyle_Spearrin__002__1_.jpg)

[Follow](https://www.linkedin.com/in/kylespearrin/)

## Areas of expertise

### Password management

![icon-password-manager-blue](https://bitwarden.com/assets/5k8peYRYVQAfM8NtxOP7yz/0346612951f761d336a7832dba9a72eb/icon-password-manager.png)

### Secrets management

![icon-exposed-secrets-blue](https://bitwarden.com/assets/5zP546xRk4xiPNyuMjW4CB/c8abd9cec9a38ef425365ca04927672c/icon-exposed-secrets.png)

### Passkeys & passwordless

![ikon-biometri-tumme-blå](https://bitwarden.com/assets/1F2yXxhDH0Jo2yPEAVepue/4c321820078dc4dc749d1771a5d06cab/icon-biometric-thumb.png)

### AI agent security

![icon-AI](https://bitwarden.com/assets/6J5sdJojI54hnkO5vMahC5/952e4201701a4050c9e95bcde26ee6b8/icon-AI-background.png)

### Open source software

![icon-open-source-2-blue](https://bitwarden.com/assets/3Pf9ZZrgNVFs7kQ1KVZ6ZJ/91e1118f8b19614779737cd4cb101a17/icon-open-source-2.png)

### Security product innovation

![icon-secure-enterprise-blue](https://bitwarden.com/assets/1PoW1bWdy9WXLcLG2ZAlrP/cae9154d5ca29ecc3fd7c80349f4d3d2/icon-secure-enterprise.png)

**The book of Bitwarden: How the best free password manager is fending off tech giants**

Kyle Spearrin had never developed a mobile app or browser extension when he started building Bitwarden as a fun side project in 2015. Nearly nine years later, Spearrin’s humble attempt at a free, open-source password manager has become one of the most popular ways to keep online accounts secure.

![Fast Company png](https://bitwarden.com/assets/56pNbsBt1xSHhAtYUf2T9J/1d94436c510943bb8ab9b86edca547a6/fast-company-logo-vector.webp)

[Read the article](https://www.fastcompany.com/91117788/how-bitwarden-is-fending-off-tech-giants)

**Bitwarden's Founder Kyle Spearrin: Building a Password Manager from Scratch**

Leo Laporte talks with the Founder & CTO of Bitwarden, Kyle Spearrin, about how Bitwarden began as a nights-and-weekends side project — born out of Kyle's dissatisfaction with LastPass following its acquisition by LogMeIn — and how he spent nearly three years running the entire company solo before hiring his first employee. They dig into the scrappy early days of building a password manager from scratch as a self-taught web developer, the brand identity of Bitwarden, and how making the code open source from the start was a deliberate move to earn user trust.

![twit-horizontal](https://bitwarden.com/assets/eL7v9LOvxleWIqd8S3cnD/a018ed880d6103c4b83c2e6046dc1f21/twit-tv-K.png)

[Listen to the episode](https://twit.tv/shows/twit-plus-club-shows/episodes/751)