Dries Buytaert

Introduction

My name is Dries Buytaert (he/him).

I'm the Founder of Drupal. Drupal is Open Source software for building websites and digital experiences. Currently, about 2% of all websites worldwide are built with Drupal. In the enterprise, that number is 1 out of 10 websites. Drupal is one of the largest and most active Open Source projects in the world. I've been working on Drupal for more than two decades, and continue to lead the project today as Drupal's Project Lead.

In 2007, I co-founded Acquia, a SaaS company that helps organizations create, manage, and optimize digital customer experiences on Drupal. I currently serve as Executive Chair and have been on Acquia's board since the early days. Previously, I spent 18 years as Chief Technology Officer, later also serving as Chief Strategy Officer, and helped grow the company from zero to around 1,400 employees and more than $350 million in annual revenue.

I'm a Young Global Leader at the World Economic Forum.

I hold a PhD in computer science and engineering from Ghent University.

I was born and raised in Antwerp (Belgium), but moved to Boston (United States) in 2010.

I try to live by a set of simple principles.

My passions

I really like building things; companies, software, and more. Creating and learning is what makes me happy.

I love to read or study at least one hour a day. I study technology, financial markets, and more.

I have a passion for photography. Take a look at my photo stream or my photo albums.

I also love travel and adventure, especially hiking and skiing. And no matter where an adventure takes me, food is often a key part of the trip. I consider travel and food an essential part of life and community.

Key awards

• ACM SIGPLAN Most Influential Paper Award for OOPSLA 2007 (awarded 2017)
• 2015 ILC Immigrant Entrepreneur of the Year in High-Tech
• CTO of the Year 2014 by Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council (MassTLC)
• DataNews' Belgian ICT Personality of the Year 2014
• Young Global Leader at the World Economic Forum 2013
• 2012 Entrepreneur of the Year award from Ernst & Young for New England
• University of Antwerp, Alumnus of the Year, 2010
• CIO of the Year 2012 in the Emerging Technology category, Boston Business Journal and Mass High Tech
• CIOnet Innovation Award 2009
• BusinessWeek Young Entrepreneurs of Tech 2008 (top 30-and-under innovators)
• MIT TR35 Young Innovator 2008

My work

• Co-founder, Executive Chair, and Board Member, Acquia
  2007 - current

  Acquia helps enterprises build digital experiences using Drupal. I co-founded Acquia in 2007, and we were early pioneers of a now-common business model: open source software delivered as a cloud service.

  In our first eight years, Acquia was one of the fastest-growing startups in the United States. We raised over $180 million in venture capital. In 2019, Vista acquired a majority stake in Acquia. Today, Acquia has over $350 million in annual revenue and around 1,400 employees.

  I now serve as Executive Chair. From 2007 to 2025, I served as Chief Technology Officer, and later also as Chief Strategy Officer. My responsibilities included product strategy, product management, M&A, product marketing, architecture, design and user experience, and more.

• Angel investor
  2013 - current

  I make angel investments in startups, with a focus on technology. Notable investments include Toast (IPO), Circle (IPO), and Oqton (acquired by 3D Systems).

• Co-founder and CEO of Mollom (acquired by Acquia in 2012)
  2008 - 2012

  Mollom is an intelligent content moderation platform for user-generated content on websites. Mollom uses machine learning to identify spam, profanity or generally unwanted content in comment systems and online discussion forums. Mollom has blocked over 15 billion spam comments across 60,000 websites. We bootstrapped Mollom with no external capital and sold Mollom to Acquia after 4.5 years.

• Co-founder and Board Member of the Drupal Association
  2006 - current

  The Drupal Association is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to promoting and advancing Drupal. The Drupal Association has around 20 full-time employees. Between 2006 and 2017, I was the Chairman and President. Today, I serve on the Executive Committee, Strategy Committee and Nominating Committee.

• Founder and Project Lead of Drupal
  2000 - current

  I founded Drupal in 2000 and have served as its Project Lead ever since. Over time, Drupal has grown into a general-purpose platform used by governments, enterprises, and non-profits around the world. I focus on the long-term health of the project, including technical direction, governance, and community sustainability. Today, Drupal powers about two percent of the world's websites. With roughly 10,000 contributors each year, it is one of the largest and most active open source projects in the world.

My education

• PhD in Computer Science and Engineering
  University of Ghent, Belgium
  2003 - 2008

  My PhD thesis was titled Profiling Techniques for Performance Analysis and Optimization of Java Applications. James Gosling, the inventor of Java, was part of my PhD defense committee.

• Licentiate Computer Science (Master of Science)
  University of Antwerp, Belgium
  1996 - 2000

  Grade: magna cum laude (with great distinction)
  Thesis: Java AWT for embedded systems

Contact me

You can mail me at dries@buytaert.net (personal) or dries@acquia.com (work).

Academic work

• Java Performance Evaluation through Rigorous Replay Compilation , Andy Georges, Lieven Eeckhout and Dries Buytaert. In proceedings of the ACM conference on object-oriented programming, systems, languages, and applications (OOPSLA '08), Nashville, USA, October 2008.
• Using HPM-sampling to drive dynamic compilation , Dries Buytaert, Andy Georges, Michael Hind, Matthew Arnold, Lieven Eeckhout and Koen De Bosschere. In proceedings of the ACM conference on object-oriented programming, systems, languages, and applications (OOPSLA '07), Montreal, Canada, October 2007.
• Statistically rigorous Java performance evaluation , Andy Georges, Dries Buytaert and Lieven Eeckhout. In proceedings of the ACM conference on object-oriented programming, systems, languages, and applications (OOPSLA '07), Montreal, Canada, October 2007.
• Javana: a system for building customized Java program analysis tools , Jonas Maebe, Dries Buytaert, Lieven Eeckhout and Koen De Bosschere. In proceedings of the ACM conference on object-oriented programming, systems, languages, and applications (OOPSLA '06), Portland, USA, October 2006.
• Building Java Program analysis tools using Javana , Dries Buytaert, Jonas Maebe, Lieven Eeckhout and Koen De Bosschere. In proceedings of the ACM conference on object-oriented programming, systems, languages, and applications (OOPSLA '06 companion), Portland, USA, October 2006.
• GCH: Hints for Triggering Garbage Collections , Dries Buytaert, Kris Venstermans, Lieven Eeckhout and Koen De Bosschere. Transactions on High-Performance Embedded Architectures and Compilers, 1(1):52-72, June 2006.
• Garbage collection hints , Dries Buytaert, Kris Venstermans, Lieven Eeckhout and Koen De Bosschere. In Lecture Notes in Computer Science Volume 3793, Springer-Verlag. In proceeding of the international conference on high performance embedded architectures & compilers (HIPEAC'05), Barcelona, Spain, November 2005.
• FPGA-aware garbage collection in Java , Philippe Faes, Mark Christiaens, Dries Buytaert, Dirk Stroobandt. In proceedings of the international conference on field programmable logic and applications (FPL'05), Tampere, Finland, August 2005.
• Bottleneck analysis in Java applications using hardware performance monitors , Dries Buytaert, Andy Georges, Lieven Eeckhout and Koen De Bosschere. In proceedings of the ACM conference on object-oriented programming, systems, languages, and applications (OOPSLA '04 companion), Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, October 2004.
• Method-level phase behavior in Java workloads , Andy Georges, Dries Buytaert, Lieven Eeckhout and Koen De Bosschere. In proceedings of the ACM conference on object-oriented programming, systems, languages, and applications (OOPSLA '04), Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, October 2004.
• Dynamic delivery of end-user services using Java, Chris Gray and Dries Buytaert. In proceedings of the Java and embedded systems symposium (JAES'02), Gent, Belgium, November 2002.
• A selective runtime compiler for the Wonka Virtual Machine, Dries Buytaert, Frans Arickx, Steven Buytaert and Johan Vos. In proceedings of the symposium on program acceleration through application and architecture driven code transformations (PA3CT '02), Edegem, Belgium, September 2002.
• A profiler and compiler for the Wonka Virtual Machine , Dries Buytaert, Frans Arickx and Johan Vos. In proceedings of the second Java Virtual Machine research and technology symposium (JVM '02), WIP session, San Francisco, USA, August 2002.
• A dynamic service delivery framework based on the OSGi model, Johan Vos, Steven Buytaert and Dries Buytaert. In proceedings of the international conference on advances in infrastructure for electronic business, education, science and medicine on the internet (SSGRR '02), L'aquila, Italy, January 2002.