full://stack.founder/Building=The_Startupverse&role=CEO=true&company=RadHash

Lorde Astor West is a technology entrepreneur, systems architect, and founder building the infrastructure layer beneath the next generation of software companies. She is the Founder and CEO of RadHash, an AI-native operating system designed to eliminate the "messy middle" that quietly kills most startups between MVP and scale.

With more than two decades in software, Lorde has led or contributed to hundreds of production systems across industries including fintech, payments, healthcare, marketplaces, media, logistics, and regulated data environments. Her work focuses on a single, persistent problem: why most software fails after early traction—and how to design systems that survive real-world growth.

Lorde is known for seeing structural failure modes early. Long before “vibe coding,” no-code sprawl, and AI wrappers became mainstream, she identified the invisible cliff where startups lose eligibility for scale, capital, and exits due to fragile architecture. RadHash was built to address that moment directly—shipping the majority of a company’s production stack on day one, with rules legible to both humans and machines.

Her approach sits at the intersection of architecture, economics, and human judgment. Rather than chasing trends, she builds foundations: predictable systems, composable infrastructure, and software that can be safely extended by AI without collapsing under its own weight. Today, RadHash supports pilots across dozens of industries and countries, serving founders who are rebuilding real companies—not demos.

Beyond RadHash, Lorde is building a broader ecosystem focused on founder durability: vertical operating systems, embedded payments and financial products, AI trained on real operator behavior, and an on-demand fractional workforce designed for early-stage execution. Each business is autonomous, but designed to interoperate—mirroring how resilient systems work in the real world.

Lorde is also a vocal critic of fast-fashion software, performative metrics, and narratives that mistake speed for progress. She writes and speaks candidly about power dynamics in venture, the myth of “too early,” and why most startup failures are decided long before the market ever weighs in.

At her core, she is a builder. She believes software should last, founders should own their foundations, and technology should reduce risk—not disguise it.

Her long-term ambition: to reset how companies are built, financed, and scaled—by making durable infrastructure the default instead of the exception.

Lorde Astor West

At Pacaso, I lead Legal, People, & Corporate Affairs (which includes Capital Markets, Corporate Development, and External Affairs) — a unified platform designed to help the company grow sustainably, manage risk, and strengthen ties with investors, regulators, and key stakeholders.

My focus is making strategy work in practice: how we raise and deploy capital, build and empower a great team, structure smart transactions, and navigate a fast-changing regulatory and policy landscape. I work closely with our Board and CEO, and I partner actively with our finance, operations, and product leaders.

In 2022, I served as Pacaso’s Head of Europe, managing that business unit and overseeing its successful evolution. I am also a named inventor on 2 Pacaso patents (US patents 11,803,924 and 12,386,859), one of which relates to the tokenization of real estate assets. 

I am a member of the Board of Directors of TiER1 Impact, an ESOP and parent company of, among others, TiER1 Performance, a certified B corporation and professional services firm.

Since 2019, I have served as an adjunct professor of corporate law at the University of Michigan Law School, where I have taught courses on Mergers & Acquisitions and Corporate Transactions, with a focus on structure as well as governance and the role of the board. Before Michigan, I taught similar courses in an adjunct capacity at the University of Cincinnati College of Law, the Ohio State Michael E. Moritz College of Law, and Syracuse University College of Law. I am currently teaching Venture Capital at the Santa Clara University School of Law in Silicon Valley. 

I am the author of the book “Seed Deals: How to Grow from Startup to Venture Capital,” a practical guide to matters of capitalization and fundraising, designed for founders, law students, and new lawyers. My article “Blurred Lines:  Crowdfunding, Venture Capital, and the Capitalization of Start-Ups” was published in The University of Cincinnati Law Review in 2015.

Before joining Pacaso, I was a long-time partner at Thompson Hine LLP, an AmLaw 150 law firm, where I specialized in counseling executives and boards through pivotal periods, whether through the organizational stresses associated with rapid growth or disruptive innovation, or through the trials and tribulations of financial adversity.

In short, what I bring is seasoned judgment, cross-functional leadership, and a dimensionalized perspective on growth — qualities I use to help the leaders, boards, and investors I serve create lasting value.

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Lorde Astor West

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