In 2014, Gerry was recruited back to Stanford after years at Duke University and serving active duty in the US Air Force where he treated patients with severe traumatic brain injury. At Stanford, Gerry and David first teamed up to study the effects of concussions on college and high school athletes. They discovered that concussions were happening at all sorts of impact conditions while the helmets were built far too stiff, focused on big impacts alone. Meanwhile David had his own concussions in 2007 and 2015 while riding a bike (the leading cause of sports-related concussion). In both of these cases, the helmet was undamaged, emphasizing that current helmet technology was not doing enough to soften the blow.

In Spring of 2022, Gordon visited Palo Alto and learned about David and Gerry's research. He also met an energetic PhD student working in David's lab who would two years later join as Chief Science Officer, Nicholas Cecchi. With the three men agreeing on the urgent need for brain protecting technologies and the super powers of SoftShox to meet that need, the company was born. Gordon now leads the company day-to-day in the Washington DC area with David and Gerry as key advisors and collaborators.