Anil Dash (; born September 5, 1975) is an American

technology Technology is the application of Conceptual model, conceptual knowledge to achieve practical goals, especially in a reproducible way. The word ''technology'' can also mean the products resulting from such efforts, including both tangible too ...

executive,

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 ...

Prince A prince is a male ruler (ranked below a king, grand prince, and grand duke) or a male member of a monarch's or former monarch's family. ''Prince'' is also a title of nobility (often highest), often hereditary, in some European states. The ...

scholar and writer. He is the Head of

Glitch A glitch is a short-lived technical fault, such as a transient one that corrects itself, making it difficult to troubleshoot. The term is particularly common in the computing and electronics industries, in circuit bending, as well as among pl ...

and VP of Developer Experience at

Fastly Fastly, Inc. is an American company based in San Francisco, which describes itself as a cloud computing company. Fastly provides content delivery network services, image optimization, and load balancing services. Fastly's cloud security services ...

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 ''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture publication based in Greenwich Village, New York City, known for being the country's first alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Ma ...

'' before becoming the first employee of

Six Apart Six Apart Ltd., sometimes abbreviated 6A, is a software company known for creating the Movable Type blogware, TypePad blog hosting service, and Vox (the blogging platform). The company also is the former owner of LiveJournal. Six Apart is ...

, the makers of

Movable Type Movable type (US English; moveable type in British English) is the system and technology of printing and typography that uses movable Sort (typesetting), components to reproduce the elements of a document (usually individual alphanumeric charac ...

, TypePad, and Vox, where he served as a vice president until 2009. From 2009 to 2012 he served as the director of Expert Labs, a Gov 2.0 project to facilitate political participation. After this work, he became an advisor to the White House Office of Digital Strategy under the Obama administration. He was also previously a partner with Michael J. Wolf in Activate Consulting, a media and technology

management consulting Management consulting is the practice of providing consulting services to organizations to improve their performance or in any way to assist in achieving organizational objectives. Organizations may draw upon the services of management consultant ...

firm, and a co-founder (with

Gina Trapani Gina Marie Trapani (born September 19, 1975) is an American tech blogger, web developer, writer, and technology executive. Early life and education Trapani was born and raised in an Italian Catholic family in Brooklyn, New York. Trapani graduat ...

) and CEO of ThinkUp, a social media aggregation and analysis tool. The company was shuttered in June 2016. Dash was appointed CEO of Fog Creek Software in December 2016. On September 25, 2018, the company was renamed Glitch after its flagship product. In March 2020, Glitch and its union signed a collective bargaining agreement, the first in the tech industry. Dash was host of ''Function with Anil Dash'', a podcast about technology's effects on culture, co-produced by Glitch and

Vox Media Vox Media, Inc. is an American mass media company founded in Washington, D.C. with operational headquarters in Lower Manhattan, New York City. The company was established in November 2011 by CEO Jim Bankoff and Trei Brundrett to encompass ''S ...

The podcast ran for two seasons from 2018 to 2020. Dash is also a scholar of the musician

NFTs

In 2014, as part of a collaboration with Kevin McCoy, Dash co-created Monegraph, a

blockchain The blockchain is a distributed ledger with growing lists of Record (computer science), records (''blocks'') that are securely linked together via Cryptographic hash function, cryptographic hashes. Each block contains a cryptographic hash of th ...

-based system for verifying original digital artworks initially called ''monetized graphics'', which has since been called the first implementation of

non-fungible token A non-fungible token (NFT) is a unique digital identifier that is recorded on a blockchain and is used to certify ownership and authenticity. It cannot be copied, substituted, or subdivided. The ownership of an NFT is recorded in the blockchai ...

s (NFTs). 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."

Recognition

In 2004, he won an SEO contest which required contestants to get the top Google ranking for the made-up phrase "nigritude ultramarine". In 2010, Dash's weblog was an honoree in the Personal Blog/Website category of the 2010

Webby Awards The Webby Awards (colloquially referred to as the Webbys) are awards for excellence on the Internet presented annually by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, a judging body composed of over three thousand industry experts a ...

. In 2022 Dash and McCoy won the Webby lifetime achievement award for the development of NFTs.

Personal life

Dash was born to Odia parents from

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

and grew up near

Harrisburg Harrisburg ( ; ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the Commonwealth (U.S. state), U.S. commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat, seat of Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, Dauphin County. With a population of 50, ...

, Pennsylvania. He lives in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

with his wife Alaina Browne and one child.

References

External links