Jon Mills: The Man Behind Motionloft

Jon Mills: The Man Behind Motionloft
Sitting on a concrete slab bench just
outside the office of Motionloft in
San Francisco, I couldn’t help but
wonder how such a discouragingly
bleak economy could produce such
young, hopeful entrepreneurs. In a
city so full of life and creativity, an
arduous recession is not enough to
stifle the flow of ideas and innovations.
Perhaps we’re in our own little
bubble here in the Silicon Valley,
but it is impressing to see how rapidly
these ideas are developing and
businesses are growing. It wasn’t
until a butt naked old man sporting
a trendy sailor cap casually cruised
by on his bicycle, that I fully grasped
San Francisco’s truly colorful com-
ination of character and vitality.
Maybe I was over analyzing the importance
of this random nude bicyclist,
but it seemed to me that he
showcased the city’s fearlessly fervent
approach towards innovation.
The moment I met Jon Mills, what
stood out to me was the tremendous
drive and passion he had for his
work. He’s interested in something
called ‘real world analytics,’ which
is the core of what Motionloft does.
The company produces small fiveby-five
inch nondescript sensors
that can track data in real time. The
possibilities are endless for the uses
of Motionloft’s valuable data. The
device could be helpful to restau-
rants hoping to maximize profits
during peak hours and could even
go as far as keeping track of people
in the event of a natural disaster.
Up until now, there has been
no definitive way to know exactly
how many people and vehicles are
passing through at any given moment.
The fact that we can actually
put a number on that from these
sensors being put in various locations
of major cities is what makes
Motionloft such a cutting-edge
company. Behind every great idea,
there’s the person whose ambition
and initiative made it all happen.
Jon is the driving force behind the
company’s growing success and is

determined to continue to grow and
expand the business. He’s truly fascinated
by numbers and how this
data can be used to give a new insight
about the way people move in
different cities. Motionloft already
has sensors up in Chicago, Dallas,
Pittsburgh, Miami, New York, and
San Francisco, but they hope other
cities are added soon so they can
start analyzing the numbers: “So far
we’ve seen some crazy things from
our data that I don’t think anyone
has actually known before” (Mills).
Upon our first meeting, I had no
clue what to expect. He was Jon
Mills, CEO of Motionloft, and that
was enough to make for a frantic
car ride up to San Francisco. I stood
outside the glass doors of 550 15th
street, struggling to hold on to numerous
cameras and lighting equipment
while anxiously awaiting the
descending elevator. Out came Jon,
your average young techie looking
guy wearing dark blue jeans and a
gray zip-up, reminiscent of the familiar
Silicon Valley “googlites” here
in Mountain View. Definitely not
the image most people would visualize
as a CEO of an up and coming
startup company. I was greeted
with a friendly stubbled smile as
I awkwardly reached out to shake
with the wrong hand. We entered
a spacious building with desktops
of computers at every corner and
boxes filled with top secret software
parts. Despite the fancy Macs and
high tech equipment, this was not
your run of the mill workplace. It
looked more like a chill out space
decked out with artsy posters and a
flat screen T.V. “Oh we’re just hangin’
out,” Jon said when I asked what he
was up to. Sure enough, I could hear
Chris Rock stand-up emanating
in the next room with Jon’s friends
kicked back on the couch, red plastic
cups scattered on the coffee table
as evidence of the night before.
Jon takes pride in the fact that his
team can be both laid back and
productive: “It’s great to be excited
about [the job] but you really have
to dig your head in. Most of our
people wear headphones like half
the day because they’re working and
concentrating on something so hard
that once 6 o’clock comes around,
everyone’s relieved that they got that
much done” (Mills). There’s something
to be said about the way Jon
chooses to organize his business.
Being CEO, he doesn’t think of himself
as being in charge of everyone:
“I think of the people here as more
of a team then a leadership, we don’t
really have a big hierarchy...we try to
keep it pretty flat, it keeps everyone
working together and moving forward
instead of politics becoming
the main problem” (Mills). This style
of business management isn’t new to
the Bay Area, but it is certainly an
unexplored approach for many businesses
in other parts of the country.
Jon feels that the best way to build a
strong team is to actually be a part
of it himself. He isn’t in some separate
office away from the rest of the
team. He literally sits side by side
with them, making himself completely
open to any ideas as well as
some occasional light hearted joking
around. In a world where it’s typical
for employees to never even see the
CEO they’re working for, much less
pass ideas through them, it’s interesting
to observe Jon’s unique framework.
Everyone has their own idea
of how a business should be run, but
this casual approach is becoming
increasingly popular in companies
like Motionloft that strive for creativity
and innovation at its fullest
extent. “People feel more comfortable
in opening up about ideas that
they have, and they’re more energetic
in the way that they think.
They think outside the box if they’re
not told to conform in some way”
(Mills). The struggle to keep the balance
between having fun and taking
work seriously is something Jon has
to deal with when recruiting new
members. Its true that people in a
more laid back environment tend
to not take things as seriously as
they should, “But that’s not all that
bad,” Jon says, “we can fix that with
a couple strongly worded e-mails.”
Growing up in a small town in Ohio,
Jon always felt so limited in what he
could do. He claimed you were either
too young to be taken seriously
or no one understood what you
were really trying to do. He hopes
this lack of advanced technological
activity will eventually change for
small towns like the one he grew
up in, but is completely content
with how his journey forward has
brought him where he is today: “It
takes an atmosphere like San Francisco
to kinda be motivated everyday,
to know that you’re working
on something that everybody else
believes in just as much as you do”
(Mills). In elementary school, Jon
was not like other kids his age. He
was intrigued by the world of business,
eager to learn about the dynamics
and technicality of the economy.
Jon distinctly remembers doing
a stock market report in second
grade, “I was the biggest nerd ever...I
was learning to trade stock at
like 8 years old” (Mills) When every
other kid was preoccupied with
Legos and video games, Jon was
immersed in the world of business
and technology. In high school, he
found a strong connection with his
computer teacher. She encouraged
him to pursue his real interests and
not be afraid to let them show, regardless
of what other students may
think. Jon remembers his name always
being called on the intercom
between classes to “report to the
computer room immediately” and
having to help fix any computer
problems. He even recalls a picture
in his yearbook which shows him
smiling next to a computer and inserting
a CD that reads ‘Jon to the
Rescue.’ He wouldn’t describe himself
as one of the popular kids, but
jokingly admits that with a small
class of fifty students, there wasn’t
much popularity to go around.
Jon believes his father is the driving
force behind his life and accomplishments.
He remembers his dad
suddenly becoming very ill and
having to stay home everyday as a
result. He painstakingly recounts
his father’s harmful habits; heavy
smoking, drinking, and working
more than 40 hours per week. It
was inevitable that his deteriorating
health would eventually catch up to
his fast paced lifestyle. Before Jon’s

dad became ill, he bought and sold
businesses. Hence Jon’s early introduction
to enterprising. His biggest
inspiration for leaving Ohio and
moving forward with his interests
was the fact that his father had always
had a dream for him to not be
stuck in Ohio. He wanted the best
for Jon and knew that it wouldn’t
happen if he stayed behind. The influence
of Jon’s father is apparent in
his boldness in taking risks with his
business. Many people think their
ideas all the way through to failure,
but Jon trusts his judgment enough
to take chances and not give up too
easily. “You’re not a failure until you
stop,” he says. The meaningful words
and advice from his dad still resonate
with him to this day. Whether
he’s in meetings with future clients
or talking to new potential members
of the team, he always keeps
his father at heart in his decisions.
As the Motionloft team gradually
expands its network of sensors and
develops new, more sophisticated
software, the possibilities are endless
for how their data can be used. Jon
feels the future of his company holds
a tremendous amount of potential,
“Our data will make people rich,
save lives, and disrupt everything”
(Mills). Motionloft is disruptive innovation
at its finest and fortunately,
their efforts will not go unnoticed.
Recently, Mayor Ed Lee declared
October 2012 as Innovation Month
in San Francisco. October Innovation
Month celebrates San Francisco
as the “Innovation Capital of the
World” which boasts a pretty major
title. “It’s a reflection of our commitment,”
Lee said in an interview with
The Chronicle, noting that 1,600
tech companies have added 3,200
jobs in the city this year. “We want
these companies to stay and grow
here, and we’re doing everything
we can to ensure that” (Temple).
In addition, the mayor will soon be
announcing their partnership with
Motionloft, a milestone which Jon
and the whole team eagerly await.
Not only does this event give them
much needed recognition, but it also
adds a lot of credibility to their work.
Talking to someone like Jon is a motivating
experience. The excitement
in his eyes and the enthusiasm in
his voice when he talks about Motionloft
distinguish him as someone
who truly loves his work and lives
to keep moving forward with it.
He wants to be able to accomplish
what no one has ever done before
and with every new set of data that
comes in, he’s excited to see how it
can be used. “It’s like in the movie
Twister when they put the sensors
up in the tornado and they’re freaking
out because there’s all this new
data coming in, it’s probably unrealistic
and stupid, but when I saw
that movie I was like, ‘Wow, that’s
the feeling I want to have someday’”
(Mills). Despite the fact that Jon and
his team haven’t quite reached the
status of storm chasers, who’s to say
they aren’t on their way? Although
they’re currently limited to examining
how big events or festivals affect
a city, Jon is confident that they will
soon be able to analyze how things
like natural disasters alter different
cities in different ways.
What Jon has accomplished is what
thousands of other tech start-ups
aim for. Collectively, these technologists
and entrepreneurs make up
the collaborative environment that
is the Bay Area. It is time for places
outside the Silicon Valley’s innovation
hub to start embracing the
tech industry’s potential to drive
positive change in the local government
and community. Step by step,
we’re moving past this seemingly
harsh economy towards something
better, and it’s beginning with people
like Jon who simply love what
they do, “Being able to see that data
coming in and saying that no one
has ever seen this before, that’s the
way I want to feel about something
I do, and I’m there now. It’s a feeling
I have every single day” (Mills).