Born in 1966 in Seattle, he undertook a double engineering degree in mathematics and programming at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), then, in 1992, a doctorate in art and design at the University of Tsukuba (Japan). At 29 years old, Maeda left Japan to teach typography and graphic interface design at the MIT. He is currently Head of Computational Design and Inclusion at Automattic, executive board member of Sonos and Wieden Kennedy, and member of Google's Advanced Technology Project Technical Committee.