Ben Swartz
Ben Swartz is a software engineer who has worked at the intersection of technology, politics, and entertainment. Most recently, Ben worked at the non-profit Empower, building relational organizing software for the 2020 election. Working with groups such as the Wisconsin Democratic Party and Sunrise Movement, his work activated volunteers and facilitated over half a million voter contacts.
Prior to that, Ben worked at Twitch and Google. At Twitch, Ben was a senior engineer and helped grow the company from 100 to 1700 employees. He led engineering teams to build products used by over a hundred million users. At Google, Ben worked on the risk team, fighting payment fraud on the Android Play Store.
Ben cares deeply about internet freedom. While at Twitch he spearheaded efforts to take a stand on Net Neutrality, building consensus with C-suite executives, lawyers, and policy groups on an issue that Twitch had not previously taken a public stance on. When he was at Google, he worked with the Internet Archive to back up Google’s historic USENET newsgroup archive, allowing it to be accessed outside of Google’s systems. Ben holds a B.A. in Mathematics from Brandeis University.
Ben is serving with Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) and working on issues related to digital platforms, data privacy, and intellectual property.