Who's This Guy?

Hi, I'm Anil Dash. I'm an entrepreneur, writer and geek living in New York City, obsessed with the way technology shapes and transforms culture, media, government and society. My work applies the techniques and innovations of tech startups to reinventing institutions and communities, and my writing tells the story of how this happens. A brief bio:

Anil Dash is the cofounder of ThinkUp, a new startup in New York City which is building an app that makes our time spent online more meaningful. Dash is also cofounder of Activate, a consultancy which helps companies at the intersection of technology and media. He is recognized as one of the earliest and most influential technologists in social media. Described as a "blogging pioneer" by the New Yorker, his site Dashes.com has been running continuously since 1999, acting as a platform for his activism and perspective on technology, policy, pop culture and media. Prior to his current work, Dash has been a columnist for Wired magazine, founded Expert Labs with backing from the MacArthur Foundation to encourage public engagement with lawmakers and the White House through use of social networks, and serves on the board of Stack Exchange and the New York Tech Meetup. Dash also advises a number of startups and non-profits, and takes advice from his wife Alaina Browne and his son Malcolm.

The highest use of new technologies is to empower and connect people who aren't born with the privilege of access to the institutions that define our culture, so I am trying to make that my life's work. Best of all, I get to have a lot of fun doing things I love, focused around a few key areas:

Founder

Board Member

Advisor

Previously

Disclaimer

None of the organizations mentioned here are responsible for anything you see on this site. You might get a better understanding of what I do by looking at these videos and press articles about me and my work. Or you can follow me on Facebook, Twitter, or subscribe to this site to keep up with me online.

Biography and Personal Info

I am a proud and passionate resident of New York City, where I live in Manhattan with my wife Alaina and our son Malcolm. As is sometimes evident from my writing on this site or on social networks, I'm an avid and unabashed student of pop culture, extremely versed in the minutia of funk music and hip hop history, and obsessive about the details of how the modern technology industry came to be. I'm also always up for a good meal (largely thanks to having been educated by my wife on the topic) and am an enthusiastic amateur on the topics of urban studies and of New York City's history in particular.

These topics tend to filter in to the way that I do my work for the organizations listed above, as you may be able to tell if you watch this video from early 2013 where I describe how we could use technology to improve society. (It's about 40 minutes.)

If you're looking for a formal bio, you can use this:

Anil Dash is an entrepreneur, technologist and writer acknolwedged as a "blogging pioneer" by the New Yorker for having started his site Dashes.com in 1999 as one of the earliest and most influential blogs on the Internet. Today his work focuses on applying the techniques and technologies of the startup world to the transformation the major institutions of society and culture.

Dash is cofounder and CEO of ThinkUp, a new app which helps people get more meaning out of the time they spend on social networking, and cofounder of Activate, the strategy consulting firm which helps the world's major media and technology companies reinvent their businesses. In addition, Dash is an active advisor to several of the most prominent and innovative technology startups and non-profit organizations and has been a columnist for Wired magazine.

Dash is a member of the board of the popular question-and-answer site Stack Exchange and sits on the board of the New York Tech Meetup which serves as the political and social hub for the New York technology community. Dash also advises the reading network startup Readability, conversation platform Branch, respected new publisher Vox Media, the popular upstart hip hop label Greedhead Records, the noted education non-profit DonorsChoose and is part of the Aspen Institute's Task Force on Learning and the Internet.

Dash has been recognized for his role in popularizing web culture and advocating for social and civic responsibility within the technology industry, earning showcases in museums including the New Museum of Contemporary Art, and honors including a Webby citation for Dashes.com in 2010 in the Personal Blog category; The New York Observer named him one of its 2012 Tech Insurgents.

Dash's earlier career involved a seminal role as Chief Evangelist at pioneering blogging technology company Six Apart (now SAY Media), where he joined as the first employee and helped guide the company into being the world's leading blogging company. His earlier career featured roles in the newspaper and music industries.

Dash lives in New York City with his wife Alaina Browne, an entrepreneur who helped launch and build Serious Eats, a James Beard Award winner for Best Food Blog; They have a young son, Malcolm. Dash can be found online at dashes.com and on nearly every social network as "anildash".

Out and About

Over the past decade, my work's been acknowledged on TV and radio, in newspapers and magazines, and even put on display in a few museums, as you can see in my full bio. I've popped up in serious books like Chris Anderson's The Long Tail, Don Tapscott's Wikinomics, Lawrence Lessig's Remix and Scott Rosenberg's Say Everything. And it's just as important to me that I've participated in the more fun aspects of web culture, earning acknowledgments in silly books like I Can Has Cheezburger? and Barack Obama Is Your New Bicycle. Perhaps most appropriately, I've also been fortunate enough to be linked to by thousands of blogs all across the web, leading to being named one of the top ten most influential people in NYC, according to NowPublic, and the second most media-connected person in technology, according to Forbes. I've tried to use that influence to draw attention to some of my independent efforts like Last Year's Model, which advocates getting the most out of the gadgets and technologies that we consume, and to support the effort to control malaria as a United Nations Social Media Envoy.

Selected Press/Media

You can see a list of recent press mentions and quotes on Google News, see published mentions of me on this Amazon.com Search, and see academic citations of my work via Google Scholar. Some highlights:

• The New York Observer named me one of its Tech Insurgents in November 2012.
• A detailed interview from March 2011 offers a colophon of sorts for this site and my work overall.
• A featured quote in this Wired story from December 2010
• A detailed profile in .net from October 2010
• A few quotes in the New Yorker profile of Nick Denton from October 2010
• A quote in this New Yorker story about Facebook from September 2010
• A profile in Fast Company's "Who's Next" from February 2010
• A New York Times One-on-One interview from January 2010
• A featured set of video interviews by Big Think from August 2009
• A quote in the New York Times Sunday Magazine's "On Language" column from August 2009
• A New York magazine roundtable from June 2009
• A video feature in Rocketboom's coverage of "Battledecks" in 2008
• Featured articles in the September 2006 and March 2007 issues of Wired
• This New York Times piece from June 2005
• A Wired News story from July 2004
• A profile in New York magazine from November 2003
• An extensive video segment on PBS from January 2003