Matt O'Donnell

The future of work is forged at the intersection of people and technology

AI-native fractional HR for teams that don't fit the playbook.

AI·Web3·Robotics·PropTech·Consulting

Four patterns, one practitioner

AI-native fractional HR for companies that don't fit the traditional playbook. Fifteen years of walking into people and ops situations, now layered with the tooling that lets one practitioner cover what used to require three.

Working on a people problem worth solving?

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A few things I've built

A slice of the portfolio. A product in daily use by HR leaders, an intelligence layer for a DeFi-AI team, and a sourcing agent for the people doing technical hires solo.

Shipped

People Partner

A private AI assistant for the HR professionals the tech market ignores.

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In Use

Lunar Intelligence

Connects what the team did with what the market did — so we can actually tell what's working.

Live

Sourcerer

A sourcing agent that does the digging. You do the talking.

Building HR functions in technical environments

15 years building people functions at technical companies, usually as the first HR hire. No playbook, no systems, no tools. Just a problem to solve and people depending on the solution.

About a year ago, I broke through the terminal. Taught myself Claude Code, then started building the tools I'd always wanted: People Partner, sourcing agents, ops dashboards, automated compliance work. Now the day job and the builder identity are the same job.

Happily married with a toddler. I make music and movies, and run a 14-person fantasy football league.

MA in Organizational Psychology

Lunar LabsHead of People & Operations
Oct 2025 – PresentSan Mateo, CA

First hire at a DeFi × AI innovation center (Moonwell.fi, Mamo.bot). Built people and operations infrastructure from nothing.

AgoricDirector of People
Dec 2022 – Oct 2025Remote

First HR hire at a global Web3 Layer 1 infrastructure company. 85% senior engineers across 5 countries, zero playbook.

SundaeDirector of People Operations
Jan 2021 – Nov 2022Remote / San Francisco

2nd hire on the people team at 100 employees. Scaled to 500+ in 18 months, then led the restructure that followed.

?What If! InnovationNY People Lead
Mar 2017 – Aug 2020New York, NY

1st US hire at a boutique innovation consultancy. Ran HRBP, recruiting, and operations for the 85-person US office through Accenture's 2019 acquisition.

Dentsu Aegis NetworkCorporate Recruiting Manager
Sep 2015 – Mar 2017New York, NY

Corporate recruiting across 50 media agencies. 100+ roles per year spanning creative, media, technology, and business functions.

Vecna RoboticsTechnical Recruiting Manager
Jan 2012 – Aug 2015Boston, MA

First recruiting hire at an MIT-founded healthcare and logistics robotics company. Built technical hiring from zero, scaling from 70 to 250.

Performance Management for a Growth-Stage Startup

The system I design for a post-Series-A team with first-time managers and founders skeptical of HR process. Built to be useful before it is mandatory.

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Let's supercharge your people.

If you're at a point where gut-feel is breaking down and the off-the-shelf playbooks do not fit, that is the gap I work in. Tell me what you're working on.