MacLaren "Mac" Cummings is CEO and Co-Founder of Terakeet, the Syracuse, New York, reputation and search firm he started with Patrick Danial in 2001. He has led the company from an early speech-recognition idea through an SEO and brand-reputation practice that now helps enterprises manage how they appear in search and generative AI answers.
Mindshark at Cornell
Cummings grew up in Tully, New York, and graduated from Cornell's School of Industrial and Labor Relations in 2001. While at Cornell he launched Mindshark Software and Consulting from his dorm, signing early software work with names such as Forbes, Seibert Financial, and General Electric and helping build a financial search engine called The Money Crawler.
His personal site ties his people-focused leadership style to a small-farm-town upbringing.
Co-founding Terakeet in 2001
In 2001 Cummings co-founded Terakeet with high-school friend Patrick Danial. The first product idea was voice and speech recognition; the name blends "terabyte" and "parakeet," a nod to data that could talk back to callers. When that platform proved early for the market, the pair pivoted in 2003 toward SEO and later broader digital reputation work, keeping the Terakeet name.
Cummings has described bootstrapping without outside investors as the choice that let the firm adapt on its own clock. Terakeet stayed headquartered in Syracuse rather than relocating to a coastal tech hub, and company pages now call it a reputation operating system for global enterprises across search engines and generative AI platforms.
Cause for the Cuse in Syracuse
Cummings's public philanthropy stays local. Terakeet employees launched Cause for the Cuse in 2013 to support Syracuse City School District students; his site says the effort has raised nearly $300,000 in educational resources. He has served on boards including Manlius Pebble Hill School alumni and CenterState CEO, and has supported Cornell entrepreneurship programs.
His recognition as CEO has included Ernst & Young's Entrepreneur Of The Year New York Award and Glassdoor Top CEOs lists, while Terakeet has collected workplace honors from Inc., Fortune, Glassdoor, and Great Place to Work.