Isaac Oates

Isaac Oates is the CEO and founder of Justworks, a simple all-in-one platform that automates HR, payments, and benefits. He built Justworks to help entrepreneurs build their business and create a great place to work.

The importance of an unshakeable team became clear through Isaac’s twelve years as an intelligence officer in the National Guard and Army Reserve. He reaffirmed this belief while working as a software engineer at Amazon, followed by his first startup Adtuitive, which was acquired by Etsy.

At both Adtuitive and Etsy, where Isaac led the HR and payments team, he recognized the system was broken. Frustrated by paperwork, exorbitant costs, and endless hours spent on administration, he saw the need for an easy, fast, one-stop platform. The idea behind Justworks was born in 2012.

Isaac holds an MBA from Cornell University and a BS in Computer Science from the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He lives in Manhattan with his wife Lindsey, their son James, and their dog Milo.