Foundry's own leadership page states the date: "In October 2019, Mike took on the role of founding CEO of Foundry." The same page describes his route into the industry as learning bitcoin mining first and then helping grow Core Scientific, and credits him with driving the launch of two later ventures inside the Digital Currency Group portfolio, Yuma, which works on Bittensor, and Fortitude Mining, which the page calls Foundry's self-mining arm.
Before bitcoin he was elsewhere entirely. Foundry's account says his career began at General Electric and that he spent more than two decades as an operational and commercial executive in manufacturing and distribution companies, often for private-equity backers. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering and an MBA in Corporate Finance from the State University of New York at Buffalo, graduating in 1996.
The period he has run Foundry covers the move of a large share of bitcoin mining to North America and the consolidation of block production into a small number of pools, Foundry USA Pool among them.