David Siegel

Siegel was born in 1961 and spent his early childhood in the Bronx, New York and focused on computer science at a young age. By 12 years old, he had built memory and logic boards and learned to program a supercomputer at New York University's Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences. As a freshman in high school, he taught a programming course to high school students at an NYU summer program.

After attending Mamaroneck High School, Siegel graduated from Princeton University with a degree in electrical engineering and computer science and he went on to receive a PhD in computer science from MIT. There, he conducted research at the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and developed thermal and tactile sensors for the Utah-MIT dexterous four-fingered hand, as well as a computational architecture for controlling the system.

After leaving MIT, Siegel worked alongside Jeff Bezos at D.E. Shaw & Co and became the company's first Chief Information Officer. During this time he founded FarSight Financial Services, the first integrated personal financial services website. FarSight performed the first retail stock trade on the Internet and was acquired by Merrill Lynch. He later served as Chief Technology Officer and Managing Director at Tudor Investment Corporation. In 1999, Siegel founded Blink.com, a web-based browser bookmark storage, organization, and sharing service that automatically searched for new sites related to users' existing bookmarks. Blink was later sold to the Vendare Group.

Two Sigma

In 2001, Siegel co-founded Two Sigma, a New York City-based company that applies data science and technology to financial services. Siegel has stated that he believes investment managers that take a scientific approach to investing have a distinct advantage. As of 2019, Two Sigma managed $60B assets globally, and had offices in New York, Houston, London, Hong Kong and Shanghai.

Siegel has spoken about encouraging employees to branch out from their daily work at Two Sigma, taking on outside engineering challenges and coding competitions. In May 2019, a Two Sigma team competed in the inaugural New York City FIRST robotics corporate challenge after setting up a temporary robotics lab in its New York office.

Siegel supports employees contributing to the company's Data Clinic, which uses the pro bono model to connect Two Sigma data scientists on a project basis with the social sector. In a partnership with the Environmental Defense Fund, the Two Sigma Data Clinic data scientists used public data on inspections of oil and gas wells to develop predictive models that could be used to send inspectors to higher risk sites.

Siegel Family Endowment

In 2011, he founded the Siegel Family Endowment, which supports organizations that help prepare society for the impact of technology. The endowment funds organizations including the Center on Rural Innovation - which brings digital job training, computer science education and entrepreneurship centers to rural areas — and Data and Society – a research institute that examines the social issues that can arise from pervasive technology.

In 2017, Siegel Family Endowment made a total of 50 grants to organizations including the New York Hall of Science, Mozilla Science Lab, and Jobs for the Future. In 2019, Siegel Family Endowment made commitments to CSforALL, and the Constellations Center for Equity in Computing and the Aspen Institute.

Siegel Family Endowment makes mission-driven grants in three interest area portfolios:

Learning: Supports research and programs that investigate how learning and teaching need to change in order to equip the greatest number of people with adaptable, future-relevant competencies and skills.

Workforce: Supports organizations that use technological innovations to help more people pursue meaningful work in a rapidly changing economy.

Infrastructure: Supports organizations that explore the implications of rapid digital innovation for the institutions that underpin civil society.

Scratch Foundation

In 2014, Siegel co-founded the Scratch Foundation to ensure that Scratch, a free online coding community that helps children learn to think creatively, reason systematically, and work collaboratively, remains free and accessible to kids all over the world. As of October 2018, the organization's official website showed more than 40 million projects shared. He is Vice Chairman of the Scratch Foundation.