Villareal was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico and grew up in El Paso, Texas and Juarez, Chihuahua. He attended Portsmouth Abbey School in Portsmouth, Rhode Island and received his BA in sculpture from Yale University in 1990 and his master’s degree in Interactive Telecommunications from New York University in 1994. After graduating from NYU, Villareal moved to San Francisco to work for three years at Paul Allen’s private research lab, Interval Research, in Palo Alto. Since 2004, Villareal has served on the board of Ballroom Marfa in Marfa, Texas, a dynamic, contemporary cultural arts space. In 2011, Villareal joined the board of the Burning Man Project. He currently lives in downtown Manhattan with his wife Yvonne Force Villareal and their two children.