Bo Peabody (born 1971) is an

entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value in ways that generally entail beyond the minimal amount of risk (assumed by a traditional business), and potentially involving values besides simply economic ones. An entreprene ...

venture capital Venture capital (VC) is a form of private equity financing provided by firms or funds to start-up company, startup, early-stage, and emerging companies, that have been deemed to have high growth potential or that have demonstrated high growth in ...

ist and

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...

executive who co-founded

Tripod.com Tripod.com is a web hosting service owned by Lycos. Originally aiming its services to college students and young adults, it was one of several sites trying to build online communities during the 1990s. As such, Tripod formed part of the first wav ...

, one of the earliest dot-coms, in 1992. He is currently the co-founder and Executive Chairman of Seated, a dynamic pricing platform for restaurants. He is also a venture partner and

entrepreneur in residence An entrepreneur in residence, or executive in residence (EIR), is a position commonly held by successful entrepreneurs in venture capital firms, private equity firms, startup accelerators, law firms or business schools. Typically, the EIR has le ...

at Greycroft Partners.

Early life and education

Peabody graduated from

Williams College Williams College is a Private college, private liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Williamstown, Massachusetts, United States. It was established as a men's college in 1793 with funds from the estate of Ephraim ...

in 1994 and the Academy at Charlemont in 1990.

Career

Tripod.com originated in 1992 with two Williams College classmates, Bo Peabody and Brett Hershey, along with Dick Sabot, an economics professor at the school. The company was headquartered in

Williamstown, Massachusetts Williamstown is a town in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, United States. It shares a border with Vermont to the north and New York to the west. Located in Berkshire County, the town is part of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts metropolitan statis ...

, with Peabody as CEO. Although it would eventually focus on the internet, Tripod also published a magazine, ''Tools for Life'', that was distributed with textbooks, and offered a discount card for students.Elliott, Stuart. "Interpublic invests in an Internet provider aimed at 'the transition generation' of young adults". ''New York Times'', May 28, 1997, p. D5. The company was the eighth-largest site on the Internet when it was sold to

Lycos Lycos, Inc. (stylized as LYCOS), is a web search engine and web portal established in 1994, spun out of Carnegie Mellon University. Lycos also encompasses a network of email, web hosting, social networking, and entertainment websites. The company ...

in 1998 for US$58 million in stock. The terms of the sale forced him to hold onto his stock for two years -- while its value increased ten-fold. After the lockup period expired, Peabody sold his shares about two months before the

dot-com bubble The dot-com bubble (or dot-com boom) was a stock market bubble that ballooned during the late-1990s and peaked on Friday, March 10, 2000. This period of market growth coincided with the widespread adoption of the World Wide Web and the Interne ...

burst.Technology Brief. "Lycos Inc.: Acquisition of Tripod Inc. Expected to Be Announced". ''Wall Street Journal'', February 3, 1998, p. A6. Following the sale of Tripod.com, Peabody has gone on to found several other companies. Most notably, he co-founded Village Ventures, a venture capital firm based in

. In 1998, he co-founded Streetmail which became EverydayHealth, the largest competitor to WebMD. Later, he co-founded VoodooVox (2000) and HealthGuru (2004). Peabody is also co-owner of Mezze, Inc, a hospitality group consisting of an events business and restaurants in

Western Massachusetts Western Massachusetts, known colloquially as "western Mass," is a region in Massachusetts, one of the six U.S. states that make up the New England region of the United States. Western Massachusetts has diverse topography; 22 colleges and univ ...

. Peabody is the author of ''Lucky or Smart'', published by

Random House Random House is an imprint and publishing group of Penguin Random House. Founded in 1927 by businessmen Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer as an imprint of Modern Library, it quickly overtook Modern Library as the parent imprint. Over the foll ...

References

External links

Author Bio at Random HouseManaging General Partner, Village Venturesgreycroft.comtownandcountrymag.com
American venture capitalists 1971 births Living people Williams College alumni 21st-century American businesspeople {{US-business-bio-1970s-stub