He Was Homeless in High School — Then Became CEO of Kickstarter

During his final year of high school, Everette Taylor was sleeping in a car that didn’t even run. He was still trying to finish school in Richmond, Virginia, but he didn’t have a reliable place to live.

When he needed somewhere safe to spend time, he often went to the Broad Rock Branch Library. There, he could use a computer, get on the internet, and spend hours learning about a world he knew almost nothing about. Taylor began reading about young technology entrepreneurs, including Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey, who were building companies such as Facebook and Twitter.

He had never imagined someone from his background could start a successful technology company. But reading about people building businesses around their own ideas made him wonder whether he might be able to do something similar. Years later, Taylor would become the CEO of Kickstarter, one of the world’s best-known crowdfunding platforms.

A Job That Changed His Direction

Taylor grew up in Richmond’s Broad Rock neighborhood with his mother, Millicent, and younger sister. His mother worked nights as a custodian at the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, and money was often tight.

As a young teenager, Taylor spent a lot of time on the streets. Some of the people around him were involved in drugs and crime, and he began heading down a similar path.

His mother recognized what was happening and decided he needed something better to occupy his time. When Taylor was 14, she encouraged him to interview for a job with Eastern National, a nonprofit that operates stores at national parks and historic sites. He got the job.

Suddenly, Taylor was meeting people from different backgrounds, learning about sales and marketing, and earning money he could use to help support his family. He later credited that opportunity with helping turn his life around.

After three years, his position ended, but the experience helped him find another job. At 17, he became a National Park Service ranger, working at historic locations around Richmond.

The job required him to speak with visitors, explain local history, and interact with people he might never otherwise have met. He became more confident talking to strangers and began developing an interest in business.

One of his fellow rangers, historian Mike Gorman, noticed his potential and encouraged him to consider college. Taylor searched online for universities in Virginia that offered technology programs. Virginia Tech appeared in the results, and he decided to apply. To his surprise, he was accepted.

From College to His First Company

Taylor enrolled at Virginia Tech and began studying computer science. But university life wasn’t quite what he expected.

He struggled during his first year, partly because he spent too much time enjoying himself instead of studying. His grades eventually improved, but family circumstances forced him to return home before finishing his degree.

Back in Richmond, he took a job at a fabric store. After paying for transportation and food, he wasn’t making much money, and he was unsure what to do next. Then he started thinking about something he already knew how to do: organize parties.

Taylor had experience promoting events and getting people to show up. He realized he could combine those skills with technology, making it easier for customers to discover events and buy tickets online.

At 19, he helped launch EZ Events. The company promoted parties and developed an online ticketing system. It started small, but Taylor learned how to attract customers, market a business, and turn an idea into something people would actually pay for.

In 2011, he sold the company. It was his first major success as an entrepreneur, although he later discovered the buyer had resold the business for considerably more money.

Taylor briefly returned to Virginia Tech, but his growing interest in technology companies had taken him in another direction. He eventually left college without a degree and headed to California to pursue opportunities in Silicon Valley.

Building a Career Without a Degree

In California, Taylor began working with technology startups, developing a reputation for understanding how to attract customers and help young companies grow.

He held marketing and leadership positions at businesses including Qualaroo, Sticker Mule, and Skurt. He also founded or helped develop several companies of his own, bringing them together under ET Enterprises. By his mid-twenties, he was already taking on senior marketing roles.

His work attracted increasing attention in the technology industry, and in 2018, Forbes included him on its 30 Under 30 list. The following year, Taylor joined Artsy, an online marketplace for buying and selling fine art, as its chief marketing officer.

Artsy gave him the opportunity to help lead a large international company. He worked with artists, collectors, and galleries while developing the marketing strategies needed to grow a global business.

That experience would eventually attract the attention of another company with close ties to the creative world. In September 2022, Kickstarter announced that Everette Taylor would become its new chief executive officer.

He was 33 years old. Kickstarter allows artists, inventors, musicians, filmmakers, and other creators to raise money directly from people who want to support their projects. Instead of needing approval from a bank or traditional investors, creators can present their ideas to potential backers.

Taylor had spent much of his career building businesses without following the usual path into corporate leadership. Now he was running a company that helped other people find opportunities to bring their ideas to life. At Kickstarter, he began working on new services for creators, improvements to the platform, and ways to help projects reach more supporters.

Returning to the Library Where It Began

In May 2025, Taylor returned to Richmond for a special occasion. Virginia Commonwealth University had invited him to deliver its commencement address to thousands of graduating students. The university also awarded him an honorary doctorate.

While visiting his hometown, Taylor returned to the Broad Rock Branch Library, the same place where he had spent so much time during his difficult final year of high school. He was photographed there for a Richmond Magazine profile, standing in the building where he had first discovered the world of technology startups.

Taylor also spoke about the people who had helped him along the way, including his mother, the employer who gave him his first job, and the ranger who encouraged him to attend college.

On May 10, he stood before Virginia Commonwealth University’s graduating class and challenged the students to pursue their biggest ambitions, including ideas that other people might consider impossible. He told the audience that he had grown up only about ten minutes from the convention center where the ceremony was taking place.

Taylor had never completed his own university degree, but he had returned to his hometown as the CEO of Kickstarter to address thousands of new graduates.

During the ceremony, he also announced plans for a scholarship bearing his name, designed to help students from unconventional backgrounds pursue their education.