Awesome Alum: George Riley

Photo courtesy of George and Letitia Riley

George ’89 and Letitia Riley ‘87 are proud alumni.

George and Letitia Riley agree that UTSA played a critical role in their career and life trajectory. “There’s no reason you can’t get as good as or a better education at UTSA than other universities,” says George Riley, ‘89, B.S. mathematics, computer science and systems design. “I value my time at UTSA highly,” adds Letitia Riley, ‘87, B.A. humanities. The Rileys are now lifetime members of the Alumni Association and enjoy attending UTSA football games. They believe that San Antonio itself is a reason to choose UTSA. “The weather, the people, the culture and feel of San Antonio are important reasons we are still here,” says George Riley. “We had plenty of chances to live and work in San Francisco or New York but chose to stay here.”

George Riley hesitated when he originally received a job offer from a young nonprofit called TED. “No life insurance, no health insurance,” remembers Letitia Riley. “He politely turned them down. Thankfully, they persisted. The next time they asked us to come to New York. They could have had anybody, but they wanted George.” There was something intriguing about TED’s vision of inclusive knowledge sharing that made him reconsider their offer. “When I saw the passion and the brains I thought, this does need to be seen,” says George Riley. “I thought, I can help make this audience bigger.” When he started working full time for TED in 2007, he joined a small team. The organization operated out of curator Chris Anderson’s loft in New York City, but George Riley opted to stay in San Antonio.

The first few years at TED presented unique challenges for the sole software engineer and the only employee working remotely from San Antonio. “I was the single software engineer on staff, but we were actually hosting here at Rackspace [in San Antonio],” George Riley says. “I chose Rackspace because they were the perfect kind of hosting company for a company like TED.”

In addition to helping set up TED’s digital platform, he played an important role in launching TEDx. TEDx allows local communities to license the TED brand and independently organize TED-like events. Over 13,000 TEDx events have taken place in 150 countries to date. “All of this content is bubbling up from places like Bombay and South America,” he says. “It exposes a whole different world to people.”

Although TED has long since grown from the original handful of employees, George Riley happily continues working as a software architect. “I remain in the same role because I prefer to write code,” he explains. “I basically had to hire my own boss. I’m glad I did because there are people that are much better at managing people and looking at long-term strategic goals. I don’t enjoy that, and I don’t think I’m very good at it.” What he is very good at is writing code. He built TED’s first translation platform that allowed anyone to view a TED talk with subtitles in their language. “There’s nothing more rewarding than writing good code,” he says. “Writing good code is like writing poetry. When I do it well, it’s like a masterpiece, and when I do it wrong, I hope no one ever reads it.”