Greg Solano & Wylie Aronow: Who Are the Founders of the Bored Ape Yacht Club?

The Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) is the most popular NFT collection in the crypto space. Despite the project’s high-profile status and interest from megastars like Justin Bieber, Tom Brady, and Stephen Curry, for the longest time, nobody knew the identity of its founders.

That all changed last February when BuzzFeed News revealed Greg Solano and Wylie Aronow are the founders of the Bored Ape Yach Club and its parent company Yuga Labs. According to Solano, they were given a warning just 20 minutes before they were doxxed. Following BuzzFeed’s reveal, both founders decided to share their names and pictures on Twitter.

Got doxxed against my will. Oh well.

Web2 me vs. Web3 me pic.twitter.com/uLkpsJ5LvN

— GordonGoner.eth (Wylie Aronow) (@GordonGoner) February 5, 2022

In this article, we are going to dive deeper into each BAYC founder’s background and examine how they built one of the most successful NFT companies to date.

Who created the Bored Ape Yacht Club?

Greg Solano and Wylie Aronow co-founded Yuga Labs, the company behind the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT project, a collection of 10,000 NFTs, many of which sold for millions of dollars. It is worth noting that the identities of two engineer co-founders, who go by the names of “Emperor Tomato Ketchup” and “No Sass,” remain unknown.

Who is Greg Solano

Wylie Aronow, aka “Gordon Goner” (on the left), and Greg Solano, aka “Gargamel” (on the right), are the founders of Yuga Labs, a multi-billion NFT company.

Greg Solano is a 33-year-old writer and editor who first found out about cryptocurrencies way back in 2009. Solano’s parents immigrated from Cuba to the United States when he was just a baby. His father was a member of the Green Berets, serving in the U.S. Army Special Forces, while his mother worked at a television network.

Solano earned his undergraduate degree from New York University and received a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Virginia. Solano was a big fan of the MMORPG gaming genre, with Everquest and the World of Warcraft being his favorites. During his college years, Solano met Wylie Aronow, who later became his partner in creating the Bored Ape Yacht Club. The pair reportedly bonded over their passion for creative writing.

Up until founding Yuga Labs, Solano spent his time working as a book editor and reviewer for literary sites. Meanwhile, he and Aronow started working on the Bored Ape Yacht Club, which was eventually released in April 2021. Before his identity was revealed to the public, Solano went by the “Gargamel” pseudonym in online discourse. 

Who is Wylie Aronow

Wylie Aronow is a 36-year-old writer from Florida and co-creator of the Bored Ape Yacht Club. Aronow spent his early life in Brooklyn, New York. His mother worked as a model, while his father, Don Aronow, was a successful businessman who had connections to influential people like former presidents and movie stars. When Wylie was still a baby, Don was murdered, with some conspiracies speculating that the mafia ordered the hit.

Like Solano, Aronow enrolled in a Masters in Fine Arts program but eventually dropped out due to chronic Colitis, which prevented him from having a regular college experience. Since he was unable to leave his house for longer periods of time due to his illness, Aronow developed a passion for MMORPGs, much like Solano.

Bonded over their shared love for writing and PC games, Aronow and Solano founded Yuga Labs, a company that is heavily inspired by massive online multiplayer games, both by their usually rich lore and a large number of concurrent players. This is especially apparent when it comes to Otherside, one of the most exciting NFT metaverse projects in the industry. 

Before Aronow’s identity was revealed, his pseudonym of choice was “Gordon Goner”. Aronow stated that the reveal turned out to be a blessing in disguise: 

“Meeting the community - people who I've been dying to meet for the past year and a half, you know, uh, it was amazing it was like extraordinary.” – Wylie Aronow on people knowing his real identity after the BuzzFeed reveal.

Who is a part of the Bored Ape Yacht Club core team?

The Bored Ape Yacht Club and its parent company Yuga Labs consists of several core members that helped the company grow to become a multi-billion dollar business. 

• Greg Solano (aka “Gargamel”) – A co-founder of Yuga Labs, the company behind the Bored Ape Yacht Club and several other high-profile NFT projects.
• Wylie Aronow (aka “Gordon Goner”) – A co-creator of the BAYC project and Solano’s friend since college days.
• Nicole Muniz – The CEO and the head of the leadership team at Yuga Labs. 
• Seneca – The lead artist behind the initial Bored Ape Yacht Club imagery. 
• “Emperor Tomato Ketchup” – One of two engineers that cofounded the Bored Ape Yacht Club.
• “No Sass” – One of two engineers that cofounded the Bored Ape Yacht Club.

In addition to the aforementioned individuals, the Yuga Labs team consists of many other creatives and developers that have been instrumental in the company’s success.

Yuga Labs’ Web3 ventures

While Yuga Labs is primarily known for its Bored Ape Yacht collection, the company has developed or invested in several other projects as well. Here are the most prominent projects in Yuga Labs’ product portfolio:

Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC)

Bored Ape Yacht Club is a collection of 10,000 unique cartoon ape NFTs created by Yuga Labs in April 2021. Each ape has its own distinct features, such as clothing and accessories, and is stored on the Ethereum blockchain. 

The BAYC community is exclusive to ape holders, with members gaining access to a variety of benefits, such as exclusive merchandise drops, real-life events, and social networking opportunities. The project has become a cultural phenomenon, with many members identifying as part of a prestigious club of like-minded individuals.

Mutant Ape Yach Club (MAYC)

MAYC features digital apes that mutated after being exposed to a “Mutant Serum”.

Mutant Ape Yacht Club is an extension of the popular Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT collection. MAYC comprises of 20,000 Mutant Apes, half of which were created by the existing BAYC NFT holders exposing their creations to “Mutant Serum,” while the other half was sold in a public auction.

The rarity of the Mutant Apes, the collection's exclusive community access, and unique membership perks have made MAYC a popular NFT collection, especially among BAYC holders. 

Otherside

The success of the BAYC collection has allowed Yuga Labs to fund the Otherside project, which will entail a rich 3D world where players can use NFTs from popular collections like Bored Ape Yacht Club, CryptoPunks and Nouns as avatars. In addition, the land in the metaverse is sold as NFTs, called Otherdeeds.

The Otherside metaverse is not playable yet, but players have been able to experience it briefly through demos. So far, the response has been overwhelmingly positive, with participants praising the platform’s capability of smoothly handling a large number of players simultaneously.

CryptoPunks

CryptoPunks is a series of 10,000 unique 8-bit style pixel art characters created by Larva Labs in 2017. Each character has its own distinct features, such as hairstyle, clothing, and accessories. CryptoPunks are considered one of the first and most valuable NFT projects, with some individual Crypto Punks selling for millions. 

Yuga Labs bought intellectual property for CryptoPunks from Larva Labs in March 2022, making it the owner of two of the most valuable NFT collections in the world, with a combined market cap of more than $2 billion dollars.

The bottom line: Greg Solano and Wylie Aronow created a multi-billion NFT company

Greg Solano and Wylie Aronow have created the most valuable and influential company in the crypto space. Last year, Yuga Labs raised $450 million from prominent venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, valuing the company at $4 billion.

The company is still actively developing its Otherside metaverse, despite the recent downturn in the NFT market. If successful, Otherside and similar NFT projects could reverse the negative trend and help boost NFT investing prospects in 2023.