FreeWorld is delighted to announce Marc Cull has joined FreeWorld as our Engineering Director! 🎉 Marc brings over two decades of experience building and leading high-performing product engineering teams that deliver innovative and impactful solutions for consumer software. As a high-impact engineering leader, Marc has scaled teams from 15 to 150 engineers, expanded globally, and ensured operational excellence across web, mobile, and platform services.
Our team is thrilled to have Marc's expertise onboard as we rapidly scale and work to end poverty-related recidivism in America!
Here's a little more about Marc:
What brought you to FreeWorld?
In The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander describes sympathizers who are “eager to join, but don’t know where or how to find the movement, and…wonder what contribution they could possibly make.” That was me. I’ve spent over 20+ years in tech leading rapid growth, lean execution, and disruptive innovation. But, I’ve struggled to figure out how to mesh my gears with anything like a Movement so that I could be a real force multiplier. In my search for organizations effectively using technology to deliver impact at scale, I found FreeWorld’s mission, track record of success, and culture of radical compassion to be particularly inspiring.
What are you most excited about your new role at FreeWorld?
I’m most excited about leveraging technology (and especially AI) to serve an extremely diverse and not entirely tech-savvy user base. Technical literacy is a soft barrier that makes re-entry harder for returning citizens. And, to say the least, the .gov and .org digital landscape hasn’t been polished by the same commercial forces that make Airbnb gleam. So, to help drive incredible outcomes, I’m really excited to discover (and demonstrate) how to shift non-commercial user interfaces closer to deserving users and ultimately disappear.
What’s something you’re passionate about outside of work?
Outside of work, I’m passionate about being a dad, traveling, and listening to lots of pretty noisy music.
What do you think needs to change for us to have a more just justice system?
Angela Davis’s call to abolish (vs reform) prisons appeals to me because it forces the hardest moral and social reckoning. Although I know it’s complicated, I’m inspired by (what little I know of) the Scandinavian approach and its focus on dignity and rehabilitation over punishment and social exile. So, on the one hand, I think nothing short of American Capitalist Democracy needs to change to reboot the justice system on a more just foundation. On the other hand, I do believe there are concrete tactical changes that can make a meaningful difference in my lifetime. For instance, Ban the Box, drug decriminalization, body cameras/police demilitarization, and abolishing minimum sentences are practical policies that could help a flywheel of change build momentum.
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