Mana Pool Team

Mana Pool was founded in 2023 by folks who love Magic: The Gathering. The team has collectively played Magic for nearly 150 years.

  • Nathan Cahill - Software Engineer

    Cahill designs and codes manapool.com, across the front and back end. He has extensive experience building web and mobile apps at scale, including royal.io and Gaia GPS.

  • Kenny Hsiung - Operations

    Kenny helps do logistics and customer support for Mana Pool. Kenny was both a professional Magic player and a professional poker player, who won a bracelet for limit poker. He has a BA in Gaming Management from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and studied cybersecurity at Penn State.

  • Andrew Johnson - Co-Founder

    Andrew leads product and business management, and works on front-end code and marketing content. He previously co-founded Gaia GPS (acquired by Outside), where he had a similar role and wrote a lot of iPhone code. Andrew was a competitive Magic player in the early 2000s, and has top 8s in PTs/GPs.

  • George Leslie-Waksman - Co-Founder

    George leads software engineering. George is an early-stage startup engineer, was the senior-most Data Platform engineer at Clover Health from pre-Series A through Series E, created the Data Engineering team at Samsara, previously worked at Google, and has contributed to open source Magic software.

  • Tom Pannell - Co-Founder

    Tom leads operations and logistics. Tom has decades of experience in Magic commerce, and he owns PlusEV Games in Camarillo, CA and runs MTG tournaments. Tom worked for Wizards and led competitive coverage as editor-in-chief of The Sideboard. He was a competitive Magic player in his youth, with a GP top 8 and a Georgia State Championship title from his teens.

  • Nathan Steuer - Generalist

    Nathan wears all the extra hats, including accounting/HR, marketing, and coding/tech work for internal IT. Nathan was the 2022 World Champion of Magic, and has won many of the other hardest tournaments in recent years, online and off. Nathan plays with Team Handshake, a formidable international team that took 2nd and 4th at the World Championships in 2023.

Advisors & Contributors

  • Ashli Baldwin - Advisor

    Ashli writes code for manapool.com.

  • Ian Blumenfeld - Advisor

    Ian helps us understand Silicon Valley and its denizens.

  • Abhishek Nath - Advisor

    Abhi wrote code for manapool.com and works with the company on a strategic partnership.

  • Tommaso DeLorenzo - Contractor

    Tommaso writes code related to AI and analytics. He is a PhD physicist with a wealth of skills in IT and computation.