Jason Calacanis | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Calacanis in 2018 | |
| Born | (1970-11-28)November 28, 1970 (age 54) Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, New York, U.S. |
| Education | Fordham University (B.A.) |
| Occupations | |
| Spouse | Jade Li (m. after 2006) |
| Children | 3 |
Jason McCabe Calacanis (born November 28, 1970) is a podcaster, American Internet entrepreneur,[1]angel investor,[2] and author.[3][4]
His first company was part of thedot-com era in New York. His second venture,Weblogs, Inc., a publishing company that he co-founded together withBrian Alvey, capitalized on the growth ofblogs before being sold toAOL. Calacanis is also an angel investor in various technology startups and co-host of theAll-In podcast alongsideDavid Sacks,Chamath Palihapitiya andDavid Friedberg, and the host ofThis Week in Startups Podcast.
Calacanis was born in theBay Ridge section ofBrooklyn, New York, and has two brothers.[5] He is of half-Greek and half-Irish descent.[6] He graduated fromXaverian High School in 1988 and attendedFordham University, where he received aB.A. inpsychology.[7]
Calacanis started his career in the 1990s as a reporter covering the internet industry in New York.[3]
Calacanis was the founder and CEO of Rising Tide Studios, a media company that published print and online publications. During the dot-com boom, Calacanis was active in New York'sSilicon Alley community, and in 1996 began producing theSilicon Alley Reporter.[1] Originally a 16-page photocopied newsletter,[2] it eventually expanded into a 300-page magazine, with a sister publication called theDigital Coast Reporter for the West Coast. Calacanis' socializing earned him a nickname as the "yearbook editor" of the Silicon Alley community.[8] The company also organized conferences in New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco focused on the Internet, web, and New Media.
Calacanis co-founded the blog networkWeblogs, Inc.[3] withBrian Alvey on September 24, 2003, and the startup was supported by anangel investment fromMark Cuban.[9]
Two years after its inception, the Weblogs, Inc. blogs business was generating $1,000 a day just fromAdSense.[10]Time Warner'sAmerica Online agreed to buy Weblogs, Inc. in October 2005 for $25–30 million.[3][11][12]
On November 16, 2006, TechCrunch reported that Calacanis had resigned from his position as CEO of Weblogs, Inc. and general manager ofNetscape.[13] Calacanis later confirmed this on his blog and the Gillmor Gang podcast.[14]
Calacanis joinedSequoia Capital, a venture capital firm,[3] as an EIA (entrepreneur in action) in December, 2006,[15] a position which he held until May, 2007.[16] Through this program, Calacanis invested $25K inTravis Kalanick's company,Uber.[2] As of 2017 the investment was worth roughly $100 million.[3]
In 2007, Calacanis is credited with starting aninternet trend he called "fatblogging" after being fed up with beingoverweight.[17] Fatblogging is when a person loses weight by exercising and then posting their weight afterwards onto their blog for encouragement and support from commenters and other fatbloggers.[17]
He launched the web directoryMahalo ("thank you" in Hawaiian),[11] which raised $20 million in venture capital from investors[18] includingSequoia Capital,News Corp,CBS,Mark Cuban, andElon Musk. Mahalo hit a peak of 15 million unique visitors a month and achieved profitability in 2011, but suffered a sharp decline in traffic that year from theGoogle Panda search algorithm update and shut down in 2014.[19]
Calacanis founded ThisWeekIn.com,[18] which shut down in 2012 but is live again and available as a weekly podcast.[20]
This Week in Startups (also calledTWiSt) is a show founded and hosted by Calacanis. The show was co-hosted byMolly Wood from 2021 to 2023.[21] Molly left the podcast in 2023 for unnamed reasons.
He also founded a startup Inside.com which focuses on delivering thematic newsletters.[22] The company raised $2.6 million.[23]
In June 2019, Calacanis partnered with theNSW Government to create the Sydney Launch Festival for startups to give their pitches to global audiences.[24]
After Elon Musk acquired Twitter in 2022 and re-organized the management and governance structure, Calacanis helped run the company Twitter along with David Sacks.[25]
In 2009, Calacanis founded theOpen Angel Forum, an event that connects early-stage startups with angel investors. The forum was the culmination of a series of public comments by Calacanis questioning the ethics of pay-to-pitch angel forums.[26] Calacanis believes startups shouldn't have to pay to pitch angel investors, calling out fees that can range from $1,000 to $8,000 for a single 10- or 15-minute presentation.[27][28] Calacanis is an angel investor inRobinhood,Wealthfront,Uber,[3]Desktop Metal,Datastax,Thumbtack,Superhuman andTrello.[29]
Calacanis raised a $10 million fund for his own venture investment firm to invest in startups that emerged from the Launch conference.[30][31] Limited partners in the fund includeDavid Sacks.[32]Following the success of the Launch conference,[33] Calacanis declared his intent to get closer and more involved in the new ventures that emerged from that conference. The level of investment was around $25,000 to $100,000 in five to 10 startups per year.[2][34]
In 2016, Calacanis was banned from attendingY Combinator's Demo Day. According to a post onHacker News by then-president of Y CombinatorSam Altman, the decision to exclude Calacanis was driven by feedback received from YC founders regarding their interactions with him.[35]
Calacanis publicly announced in 2018 that he had sold all of his Facebook stock, expressing sharp criticism of company CEO and co-founderMark Zuckerberg on the Too Embarrassed to Ask podcast. He called Zuckerberg "completely immoral" in how he runs the business and said, "No founder should ever sell a company to him."[36]
Calacanis authored a book titled"Angel: How to Invest in Technology Startups—Timeless Advice from an Angel Investor Who Turned $100,000 into $100,000,000"[3] on angel investing published by HarperCollins in 2017.[37]
In 2018, Calacanis invested inCalm, a meditation app that is valued at $1 billion.[38][39]
| This Week in Startups | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Presentation | |
| Hosted by | Jason Calacanis and Molly Wood |
| Related | |
| Website | thisweekinstartups |
This Week in Startups is a weekly podcast created and hosted by Calacanis.[18][40]The Wall Street Journal contributor Cecilie Rohwedder described the podcast as "an influential Web series filmed in the U.S."[41]
Plans for the podcast were announced on March 16, 2009, through a blog post. The 60-minute program premiered on May 1, 2009, featuringBrian Alvey, CEO and founder of the content management and hosting system Crowd Fusion, as its first guest..[42]
This Week in Startups was listed in an article atFortune.com titled "The Ultimate Guide to the Best Business Podcasts".[43]
As of 2022, Calacanis is co-host of theAll-In podcast, alongsideChamath Palihapitiya,David O. Sacks, andDavid Friedberg.[44][45][46] In May 2022, theAll-In Podcast team hosted their firstAll-In Summit in Miami, where leaders in business and tech attended to discuss the central theme of "What problem do you want to solve right now?"[47]
Calacanis married Jade Li sometime between 2006 and 2009.[48][49]
Calacanis was an early supporter and founder for the effort behind the successful recall election of the San Francisco District AttorneyChesa Boudin in 2022.[50][51]
Calacanis was a contact listed inJeffrey Epstein's "little black book", which gained attention following the conviction and death of Epstein.[52][53]
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