Alan Eustace

Alan Eustace leapt to Earth from the edge of the stratosphere wearing only a spacesuit, shattering skydiving records and potentially revolutionizing the commercial space industry. In a custom 500-pound spacesuit, Eustace was strapped to a weather balloon, and rose to a height of over 135,000 feet, where he dove to Earth at speeds exceeding 821 mph -- breaking both the sound barrier and previous records for high-altitude jumps.

Leading up to this jump, Eustace and his partners in StratEx had spent years solving a key problem of stratosphere exploration: returning human beings to Earth from the edge of space using minimal life-support systems. In the process, they’ve opened the door to cheaper and safer near-space travel.

Previously, Eustace was Google's senior vice president of search, and engineering. Prior to Google, he spent 15 years at Digital/Compaq/HP's Western Research Laboratory where he worked on a variety of chip design and architecture projects, including the MicroTitan Floating Point unit, the fastest microprocessor of its era.