Jon Snoddy

Jon Snoddy is CEO of Operative Games, a new company reinventing storytelling by combining AI-controlled characters to tell emotionally resonant stories. The narratives and characters are crafted by Hollywood screenwriters and play out using a proprietary story engine and real-time animation system.

A visionary leader in technology and entertainment, Snoddy is best known for his innovative work at Walt Disney Imagineering. At Disney, he led a mix of artists, scientists, technologists, and engineers, working to invent the next generation of entertainment experiences. He built world-renowned teams in the US, Europe, and Asia working in Software, Materials Science, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Next Generation Storytelling, Interactive Character Experiences, and Optics that created new theme park ride systems and wrote the life-safety critical software to run them. They invented auto-stereo displays that deliver 3D without glasses and used exotic materials like Ultra High-Performance Concrete to revolutionize the construction of show sets. The robotics teams pioneered biped robots completely designed and programmed in simulation then simply printed out. These robots can walk, talk, dance, and fly.

Snoddy, who holds over 20 patents in a broad range of areas, started his career as a recording engineer at National Public Radio in Washington then joined Lucasfilm before moving on to Disney. There, as a Concept Designer, he led ride development for Disneyland’s Indiana Jones™ Adventure and founded the Disney VR Studio, which produced the award-winning Aladdin VR Adventure. He left Disney to launch Game Works LLC with DreamWorks, Sega, and Universal Studios; led redevelopment projects like Centum City in Busan, South Korea; developed movie theater games with TimePlay Entertainment; and personalized video sharing with Bigstage Entertainment. After selling BigStage, he returned to Disney to lead R&D.