# Patrick O'Grady

*Founder of Commonware (Simplex BFT).*

Patrick O'Grady is the founder of Commonware, an open-source Rust library of modular blockchain primitives whose Simplex BFT consensus powers Tempo's sub-second finality. A former VP of Engineering at Ava Labs and earlier a Coinbase engineer (Rosetta), his link to Tempo is indirect — through Commonware — and Tempo led a ~$25M strategic investment into his company.

## At a glance

- **Type:** person
- **Category:** people
- **Status:** active

## Key facts

- **Role:** Founder of Commonware, the infrastructure company behind the Rust-based blockchain primitives and Simplex BFT consensus used by Tempo. _(confidence 98%)_
- **What Commonware is:** An open-source, modular Rust library of blockchain primitives spanning networking, consensus, and related infrastructure (an 'anti-framework' of reusable building blocks rather than a monolithic chain). _(confidence 92%)_
- **Founded Commonware:** Founded Commonware in July 2024. _(confidence 94%)_
- **Prior work — Ava Labs:** Previously a VP of Engineering at Ava Labs, the team behind the Avalanche blockchain, before founding Commonware. _(confidence 60%)_
- **Prior work — Coinbase:** Earlier worked in crypto engineering at Coinbase, where he was involved in Rosetta, an open-source standard for blockchain integration. _(confidence 88%)_
- **Relationship to Tempo:** His connection to Tempo is indirect, through Commonware; he is not a disclosed Tempo employee, and Commonware is a separate entity from Tempo. _(confidence 85%)_
- **Tempo investment in Commonware:** Tempo led a ~$25 million strategic investment into Commonware to accelerate shared high-performance infrastructure work. _(confidence 94%)_
- **Tempo collaboration announced:** The Tempo–Commonware collaboration was announced in November 2025; Tempo began building with the Commonware Library and became a core contributor. _(confidence 92%)_

## Sources

1. [https://commonware.xyz/blogs/introducing-commonware](https://commonware.xyz/blogs/introducing-commonware)
2. [https://patrickogrady.xyz/](https://patrickogrady.xyz/)
3. [https://www.theblock.co/post/305886/avalanche-engineering-vp-patrick-ogrady-departs-to-launch-blockchain-startup-commonware](https://www.theblock.co/post/305886/avalanche-engineering-vp-patrick-ogrady-departs-to-launch-blockchain-startup-commonware)
4. [https://commonware.xyz/blogs/welcome-tempo](https://commonware.xyz/blogs/welcome-tempo)
5. [https://fortune.com/2025/11/07/stripe-paradigm-tempo-commonware-strategic-investment-25-million/](https://fortune.com/2025/11/07/stripe-paradigm-tempo-commonware-strategic-investment-25-million/)

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Last reviewed: 7 Jun 2025  
Canonical: https://tempo.dataos.so/entity/patrick-ogrady  
Source: tempowiki (https://tempo.dataos.so) — an independent, sourced reference for the Tempo ecosystem. Not affiliated with Tempo, Stripe, or Paradigm.