George Hotz
American software engineer
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Key Takeaways
- George Francis Hotz (born October 2, 1989), alias geohot , is an American security hacker, entrepreneur, and software engineer.
- From September 2015 until November 2025, he worked on his vehicle automation machine learning company comma.
- Education Hotz attended the Academy for Engineering and Design Technology at the Bergen County Academies, a magnet public high school in Hackensack, New Jersey.
- Hotz also briefly attended Rochester Institute of Technology and Carnegie Mellon University.
- He traded his second unlocked 8 GB iPhone to Terry Daidone, the founder of CertiCell, for a Nissan 350Z and three 8 GB iPhones.
George Francis Hotz (born October 2, 1989), alias geohot, is an American security hacker, entrepreneur, and software engineer. He is known for developing iOS jailbreaks, reverse engineering the PlayStation 3, and for the subsequent lawsuit brought against him by Sony. From September 2015 until November 2025, he worked on his vehicle automation machine learning company comma.ai. Since November 2022, Hotz has been working on tinygrad, a deep learning framework.
Education
Hotz attended the Academy for Engineering and Design Technology at the Bergen County Academies, a magnet public high school in Hackensack, New Jersey. Hotz is an alumnus of the Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth program. Hotz also briefly attended Rochester Institute of Technology and Carnegie Mellon University.
Security research
iOS
In August 2007, seventeen-year-old George Hotz became the first person reported to remove the SIM lock on an iPhone. He traded his second unlocked 8 GB iPhone to Terry Daidone, the founder of CertiCell, for a Nissan 350Z and three 8 GB iPhones.
In October 2009, Hotz released blackra1n. It was compatible with all iPhone and iPod Touch devices running iOS 3.1.2.
On July 13, 2010, Hotz announced the discontinuation of his jailbreaking activities, citing demotivation over the technology and the unwanted personal attention. Nevertheless, he continued to release new software-based jailbreak techniques until October 2010.
One of his last works, limera1n, was publicly disclosed in October 2010.
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