Bio, photos, and contact information for journalists, conference organizers, and podcast hosts.
Short bio (~50 words)
Extended bio (~150 words)
Shawn Yeager is founder of Upshift, where he helps professional services firms turn AI into new revenue: what to sell, how to price it, and the systems that deliver it.
He has spent 30 years on the commercial side of new technology, starting on Microsoft’s first browser team. Since then he has worked on early hosting infrastructure at Exodus, IoT hardware into big-box retail, personal data sovereignty, and Bitcoin payments at Bottlepay, NYDIG, and Amboss. At NYDIG he worked with major banks. He has been a CEO and has run the teams that had to sell something new. In that time he has been responsible for more than $300M in revenue.
He writes at the Upshift blog and publishes Sideband on agentic AI: what breaks when the user isn’t human and what gets built instead. He also advises founders and holds board seats with startups building at the frontier.
Professional photo
High-resolution headshot available for download:
Contact
Current focus
- Upshift: turning AI into new revenue for professional services firms
- Publishing Sideband on agentic AI: what breaks when the user isn’t human and what gets built instead
- Go-to-market advisory for frontier tech founders
- Board seats with startups building at the frontier
Topics I speak and write about
- What professional services firms sell, and how they price it, once AI has made the work faster
- How new technology changes sales, pricing, and competitive dynamics
- Go-to-market strategy for frontier tech
- Agent-era infrastructure, and what breaks when the user isn’t human
- Bitcoin, Lightning, and decentralized infrastructure
Recent speaking
2026 appearances, with recaps on the Upshift press page:
- AI Strategy for Consulting Firms: From Efficiency to Growth, The Consulting Growth Podcast, September 2026
- AI Commercialization Strategies for Agencies, Build a Better Agency, August 2026
- How AI Is Forcing Accounting Firms to Rethink Pricing, The Modern CPA Success Show, August 2026
- AI and the Billable Hour, Ditching Hourly, June 2026
- AI Killed the Billable Hour, The Good Stuff, May 2026
- Deal or No Deal: AI in M&A, ACG Tennessee Mid-South Capital Connection, May 2026
- AI Won’t Replace You. Your Business Model Will., The Polaris Signal, May 2026
Earlier talks
Imagine IF Conference. He joined Derek Ross and Matt O’Dell on a panel about broken incentives in digital platforms, and how open protocols like Nostr give users ownership and control.
Where Does the Yield Come From? He joined Max Kei, Myles Snider, and Jesse Schrader on a panel about where yield originates in Bitcoin-backed lending and investment products.