Uri Kolodny is a Co-Founder, Board Member & Ex-CEO at StarkWare^[3], the developer of the permissionless Validity-Rollup (ZK-Rollup) Layer 2 network operating on Ethereum, Starknet. Kolodny stepped down as CEO of StarkWare in January 2024. ^[1][2]

Education

Uri Kolodny attended The Hebrew University of Jerusalem from 1993 to 2001 where he earned a B.Sc., in Computer Science (Magna cum Laude). In 2000, he earned an MBA at MIT Sloan School of Management. ^[2]

Career

Uri Kolodny is a serial entrepreneur, who has co-founded several technology companies, among them OmniGuide (an MIT spinoff developing optical fibers for endoscopic surgery), Timna (developer of an ultrasound-based therapeutic product for the cardiovascular market), and Mondria Technologies (developer of tools for visualization of big data). ^[2]

Previously, Uri also served as an Entrepreneur-In-Residence (EIR) with two Israeli VC firms including Greylock & ICV. ^[2]

He has served as an Advisor and Angel investor in multiple companies including Certora, Mesodyne, Anthro, Aclarity, and Newmetrix. ^[4]

StarkWare

In 2018, Uri Kolodny co-founded StarkWare alongside Eli Ben-Sasson, Michael Riabzev, and Alessandro Chiesa. He served as the CEO of the company until January 2024 when he stepped down due to a family health issue. ^[3][5]

“I remain utterly STARK-pilled, but I’m leaving the CEO post to meet the health needs of my family,” Kolodny said. ^[6]

“The company, and the tech stack it has built, are more advanced after six years than I could have ever dreamed. Led by Eli and the team of 150+ gigabrains, I’m positive that StarkWare will continue to push boundaries of what is possible in scaling Ethereum.”^[5]

In his statement, Kolodny expressed confidence in the company’s future under Eli Ben-Sasson’s leadership.

“I am sure he will lead Starkware forward with talent and devotion, to great heights,” he remarked.^[6]

StarkWare Industries Ltd. is a blockchain technology company based in Israel, focusing on developing ZK-Rollup technology and building products to solve the challenges of the Ethereum network. Besides the technology infrastructure, Its main two products are StarkEx and StarkNet. ^[3]

StarkEx

StarkEx is the Validium L2 scaling engine on Ethereum mainnet that is modified (tailored) to fit specific permissioned Dapps, used for projects to deploy their ideas (mostly for trading use cases) dYdX, ImmutableX, DeversiFi, and many other partners. This Specific L2 is where most protocols are built on, generating real trading volume and conducting transactions. ^[7]

Starknet

Starknet is built based on STARK as the decentralized L2 Zk-rollup. The layer is responsible for executing transactions while scaling without the security sacrifice of Ethereum. STARK developers can write smart contracts and run them permissionlessly on Starknet. ^[8]

Starknet aims to achieve secure low-cost transactions and high performance by using the STARK cryptographic proof system. Starknet contracts and the Starknet OS are written in Cairo, a custom-built and specialized programming language. ^[8]