Our story
Hi, I'm Matt
Hello, I'm Matt Gjertsen, the founder of BUILT.
My entire career has been about serving others. In fact, my very first jobs in high school were as a bus boy and a lawn mower. This desire to serve is what led me to enroll in the U.S. Air Force Academy after high school.
Following graduation, I spent 9 years as an instructor pilot, training future military leaders to fly the T-1 and KC-10 aircraft. This experience took me all over the world and laid the foundation for my philosophies about both training and leadership.
I eventually left active duty to follow my passion for space to SpaceX where I became the head of Training and Development. My team was responsible for everything from new hire orientation to leader development to training technical production and engineering skills. After four and a half years at SpaceX, I decided to take on the challenge of building the learning team at Cloud Kitchens, a rapidly growing start-up that scaled from 500 to 2500 employees during the first 18 months I was there.
These experiences have taught me many things, but two lessons in particular stand out.
First, the future is going to be amazing! From self-driving cars to sustainable energy to rocket trips to Mars, brilliant engineers and technicians all around the world are making these amazing things come to life before our very eyes.
Second, the hardest part about creating that amazing future isn't the physics or engineering, it is the people part. Getting large groups of people to work together effectively is the defining challenge of humanity and solving that challenge is going to require great leaders.
This is where the idea for BUILT was born. Better leaders, making better companies, making a better world.
BUILT was founded to help build a better future through leadership development. My team has had the privilege of working with industry leaders and innovative organizations like the XPRIZE Foundation, Lockheed Martin, Virgin Orbit, and many others.
Our mission it to train the next-generation of hard-tech leaders to build teams capable of solving the worlds hardest problems.
What we value
Ownership
We believe leadership begins with ownership. Clear responsibility enables faster decisions, stronger execution, and trust across teams.
Simplicity
We approach leadership the way engineers approach complex systems—by breaking problems down to their fundamentals and building solutions from the ground up.
Collaboration
The hardest problems require collective intelligence. We foster environments where diverse expertise, open challenge, and shared accountability drive progress.