Speaker : Jason Calacanis

Chief Executive Officer, Weblogs, Inc. Network
Blog : calacanis.com

Mr. Calacanis is a highly regarded expert on issues related to media, finance, technology, the Internet and public policy. Calacanis regularly appears in the press and has been featured in and appeared on media outlets including The New York Times, The New Yorker, Wired, The Charlie Rose Show, 60 Minutes, CNN, CNBC, CNNfn, Bloomberg, Fox News, ABC News, and Nightline.

Jason McCabe Calacanis was born in Bay Ridge (in Brooklyn, NY) in 1970. He attended   Xaverian High School and Fordham   University, where he majored in Psychology. After working as a programmer for a system integrator and Sony   Corporation where he met famed restauranter Barry Wine, Mr. Wine and Mr. Calacanis created a virtual chat environment   for America Online called Restaurant City. It was a virtual environment where users could sit in a sushi bar — or   dive bar — and chat. America Online bought the property in 1995.  

Calacanis went on to consult for a venture capital firm in New York City which would later be known as   Flatiron Partners. He created a 16-page newsletter called Silicon   Alley Reporter that quickly grew into a must-read. In four years Calacanis and his team built the company to $12   million dollars in yearly revenue. When the Internet industry consolidated in 2000 and 2001 Calacanis changed the   name of the magazine to Venture Reporter and shifted from an advertising   model to a database subscription model. That move saved the company while other Internet publications crashed and   burned.

In April 2003, Calacanis sold Venture Reporter to Wicks Business Information, the owners of VentureOne and   VentureSource—the most respected venture capital databases in the world. In March of 2004 Wicks sold VentureReporter   and VentureSource to the Dow Jones/Wall Street Journal. Mr. Calacanis is currently a consultant to the Dow Jones corporation.

In the fall of 2003, Calacanis hatched the concept of the Weblogs, Inc. Network with his longtime friend   Brian Alvey. Alvey and Calacanis both attended Xaverian High School. In 1994, Calacanis and Alvey collaborated on their first magazine, CyberSurfer. For a time Alvey was the art director of   Silicon Alley Reporter, before taking over as CTO. Alvey helped create Venture Reporter with Calacanis.

Calacanis is currently the CEO of The Weblogs, Inc. Network and Alvey is the President.

Calacanis is a 5th degree in Tae Kwon Do, ran 11 consecutive New York City   Marathons and rewrote and appears in Wayne Wang’s film Center of   the World with friend Peter Sarsgaard.

Calacanis is bi-coastal, living in Santa Monica and New York City with his bulldog Toro.