Vercel has appointed Mitchell Hashimoto, Co-Founder of HashiCorp and creator of widely used developer tools including Terraform and Vagrant, to its Board of Directors. The move brings a prominent infrastructure software builder and open-source figure into the company as it expands its platform for AI-era application development. Hashimoto helped launch HashiCorp in 2012 and led engineering efforts behind products that became core tools for software teams.
In 2024, IBM acquired HashiCorp in a deal valued at about $6.4 billion. Since leaving the company, Hashimoto has also launched Ghostty, a GPU-accelerated terminal emulator aimed at developers. His appointment comes as Vercel builds on recent growth, following a $300 million Series F round at a $9.3 billion valuation. Vercel Chief Executive Officer Guillermo Rauch commented, “Mitchell is inimitable as an advisor: he’s built tools that nearly every developer uses, grown a company to a multi-billion-dollar outcome, and then stepped back into the arena as a builder.”
Hashimoto said he joined because “Vercel checks every box for what I care most about: a powerful developer presence, industry-defining products, and a team building for our agentic future.” He added that he has followed Vercel as “a founder, an engineer, and a customer” and wants to support its work in software infrastructure for frontends, backends, and AI agents. Vercel executives said Hashimoto’s long history with the company’s products and his open-source track record align closely with its product and developer strategy.