A native of Seattle, Rudy graduated from F&M in 1991 (Pledge Class of 1988) and went to law school at the University of Washington. He started his legal career at Perkins Coie, the Northwest’s largest law firm. In 1999, he joined Amazon.com as its fourth lawyer, eventually rising to the position of VP & Associate General Counsel for New Technologies, Intellectual Property and Business Development. Rudy left Amazon in May 2005, and after a short stint as a principal at Beacon Law Advisors, moved to Palo Alto to become Facebook’s general counsel and 46th employee in January 2006. After the birth of his first son in 2008, Rudy returned to Seattle and took on the role of VP, Business Operations at an internet startup, Evri Inc., which he left in July 2010. Since then, Rudy has become one of the most active angel investors in the Seattle area, investing in 50+ technology companies, and most recently, Rudy joined Seattle-based venture capital firm Founder’s Co-op as a general partner in its third fund. Rudy serves on the boards of several Seattle-area startups and is a trustee of Seattle Country Day School.
I credit a lot of my professional success to the lessons I learned at Kappa Sigma about honor, loyalty, teamwork and overcoming adversity, not to mention the lifelong friendships I made there. Kappa Sigma had a much more profound influence on my life than anything I learned academically at F&M, and I am glad to give this gift so that future generations of brothers can have the same great experience I had.