Anil Dash
Anil Dash at SCS 2007
Anil Dash at SCS 2007
Born (1975-09-05) September 5, 1975 (age 48)
OccupationCEO, Glitch
SpouseAlaina Browne[1]
Children1
Website
anildash.com

Anil Dash (/ɑːˈniːl ˈdæʃ/; born September 5, 1975) is an American technology executive, entrepreneur, Prince scholar[2] and writer.[3][4] He is the Head of Glitch and VP of Developer Experience at Fastly.

Career

In 1999, Dash launched his personal weblog, dashes.com (now anildash.com), while working as an independent technology consultant. From 2001 to 2003, he worked as a new media developer for the Village Voice before becoming the first employee of Six Apart, the makers of Movable Type, TypePad, and Vox, where he served as a vice president until 2009.[5][6]

From 2009 to 2012 he served as the director of Expert Labs,[7] a Gov 2.0 project to facilitate political participation.[8] After this work, he became an advisor to the White House Office of Digital Strategy under the Obama administration.[9]

He was also previously a partner with Michael J. Wolf in Activate Consulting, a media and technology management consulting firm,[10][11] and a co-founder (with Gina Trapani) and CEO of ThinkUp, a social media aggregation and analysis tool.[12] The company was shuttered in June 2016.[13] Dash was appointed CEO of Fog Creek Software in December 2016.[14] On September 25, 2018, the company was renamed Glitch after its flagship product.[15] In March 2020, Glitch and its union signed a collective bargaining agreement, the first in the tech industry.[16]

Dash was host of Function with Anil Dash, a podcast about technology's effects on culture, co-produced by Glitch and Vox Media[17] The podcast ran for two seasons from 2018 to 2020.

Dash is also a scholar of the musician Prince.[2]

NFTs

In 2014, as part of a collaboration with Kevin McCoy, Dash co-created Monegraph, a blockchain-based system for verifying original digital artworks initially called monetized graphics,[18] which has since been called the first implementation of non-fungible tokens (NFTs).[19][18][20]

Dash has been critical of present day usage of the NFT concept, stating "The only thing we’d wanted to do was ensure that artists could make some money and have control over their work," and that co-creator "McCoy still believes that blockchain technologies can help artists sustain their work."[18]

Recognition

In 2004, he won an SEO contest which required contestants to get the top Google ranking for the made-up phrase "nigritude ultramarine".[21]

In 2010, Dash's weblog was an honoree in the Personal Blog/Website category of the 2010 Webby Awards.[22] In 2022 Dash and McCoy won the Webby lifetime achievement award for the development of NFTs.[23][24]

Personal life

Dash was born to Odia parents[25] from India and grew up near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. He lives in New York City with his wife Alaina Browne and one son.[1][26]

References

  1. ^ a b Hirschman, David S. (May 16, 2008). "So What Do You Do, Anil Dash, Chief Evangelist, Six Apart". Mediabistro. Archived from the original on June 2, 2013. Retrieved November 12, 2021.
  2. ^ a b Cramer, Maria (7 April 2022). "Film at 11: How a Minnesota Station Found Old Footage of a Very Young Prince". The New York Times.
  3. ^ dash, anil. "Who's This Guy - Anil Dash". Archived from the original on 2009-03-27. Retrieved 2012-09-05.
  4. ^ Johnson, Eric (2018-06-22). "How can we make tech more accountable?". Recode. Retrieved 2018-10-04.
  5. ^ "Interview: The Low Down On Six Apart (With Anil Dash)". The Blog Herald. 2006-12-05. Retrieved 2018-10-04.
  6. ^ Peisner, David (2014-03-05). "What Really Happened During Evan Williams's Worst SXSW Moment?". Fast Company. Retrieved 2018-10-04.
  7. ^ Reagan, Gillian (November 18, 2009). "Dash to D.C.! Tech Guru Will Head Gov't Incubator, Digitize Democracy". The New York Observer. Archived from the original on November 21, 2009.
  8. ^ Bilton, Nick (January 13, 2010). "One on One: Anil Dash of Expert Labs". bits.blogs.nytimes.com, The New York Times.
  9. ^ Austin, Patrick Lucas; De La Garza, Alejandro; Fitzpatrick, Alex; Gregory, Sean (7 August 2019). "Why TIME's 2019 Tech Optimists Are Upbeat About Silicon Valley's Future". Time. Retrieved 28 November 2021.
  10. ^ Hatch, Lauren (25 February 2010). "Michael Wolf and Anil Dash Brace Media for the New World". Business Insider.
  11. ^ "Company overview of Activate Inc". Bloomberg. Retrieved 2018-10-04.
  12. ^ Taylor, Colleen (26 March 2012). "ThinkUp App Goes For-Profit in Bid To Decentralize The Social Web". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2021-10-31.
  13. ^ Dash, Anil (2016-06-13). "The end of ThinkUp". Anil Dash. Retrieved 2021-10-31.
  14. ^ "A New Product Name, and a New CEO". Fog Creek Software Company Blog. Archived from the original on December 20, 2016. Retrieved October 31, 2021.
  15. ^ Dash, Anil (September 25, 2018). "Fog Creek is now Glitch!". Medium. Retrieved October 31, 2021.
  16. ^ Schiffer, Zoe (2 March 2021). "Glitch workers sign tech's first collective bargaining agreement". The Verge. Retrieved 2021-11-01.
  17. ^ Anil Dash (19 October 2018). "Introducing Function with Anil Dash". Function with Anil Dash (Podcast). Vox Media Podcast Network. Retrieved 7 March 2022.
  18. ^ a b c Dash, Anil (2 April 2021). "NFTs Weren't Supposed to End Like This". The Atlantic. Retrieved 31 October 2021.
  19. ^ Constine, Josh (9 May 2014). "Monegraph Uses Bitcoin Tech So Internet Artists Can Establish "Original" Copies Of Their Work". TechCrunch. Retrieved 31 October 2021.
  20. ^ Gladstone, Brooke (12 November 2021). "Cha-ching!". On the Media. WNYC.
  21. ^ Terdiman, Daniel (July 8, 2004). "Single Post Wins Google Contest". Wired News. Archived from the original on 14 October 2010. Retrieved 2010-10-06.
  22. ^ "Honoree: Anil Dash: Dashes.com". The Webby Awards. Retrieved 12 November 2021.
  23. ^ "Webby Lifetime Achievement: Anil Dash & Kevin McCoy". The Webby Awards. 16 May 2022. Retrieved 17 May 2022.
  24. ^ Mattei, Shanti Escalante-De (2022-04-27). "Takashi Murakami, NFT Creators Win Big at Webby Awards". ARTnews.com. Retrieved 2022-09-29.
  25. ^ Kondabolu, Ashok (11 September 2012). "Ashok and Anil Go to the Cafe". Aaww.org. Asian American Writers' Workshop. Retrieved 6 September 2015.
  26. ^ Dash, Anil. "Anil Dash on about.me". about.me. Retrieved 2018-10-03.

Further reading

External links

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