Ben Huh is a South Korean-American
internet entrepreneur and the former
CEO
A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...
of
The Cheezburger Network, which at its peak in 2010 received 375 million views a month across its 50 sites.
[Chard, Thea]
Cheezburger CEO Ben Huh on Surrounding Himself with More Talent, and the Future of the Global Humor Blog Network
Xconomy. June 30, 2010.
Early life
Huh was born in
Seoul,
South Korea and grew up in
Rancho Cordova, California, attending
Cordova High School there.
[Stacy, Michael]
Big Omaha - Ben Huh: ‘Things that excite us are things that would make other people cringe’
Silicon Prairie News. May 12, 2011. In 1999, Huh graduated from
Northwestern University with a degree in
journalism, although English was not his first language.
[ With regards to this, he said "I got a degree in a language I didn't speak because I felt something in the power of media that attracted me."][
The Web's influence on journalism was growing, and Huh decided to go into a career in the Internet.][James, Anthony]
Startup Q&A: Cheezburger's Ben Huh on new ideas
Tech Flash. July 9, 2011. He founded a web analytics company, which folded after 18 months.[ After that, he worked at three companies in six years.][
In 2007, Huh started a blog for fun with his wife about living with a dog in Seattle.][ Later that year, there was a series of pet food recalls, and the company responsible took down their company website.][ Huh went through the company's cached files and found a PDF that outlined the company's customers, revenues, and facility locations.][ He posted this to his blog, and the post got linked around the internet. One of the links was from a site called I Can Has Cheezburger and Huh struck up a friendship with the two owners.][
]
The Cheezburger Network
In September 2007, Huh connected with a group of angel investors
An angel investor (also known as a business angel, informal investor, angel funder, private investor, or seed investor) is an individual who provides capital for a business or businesses start-up, usually in exchange for convertible debt or owners ...
to buy I Can Has Cheezburger.[Wallace, Lewi]
SXSW: 2008, the Year the Audience Keynoted
Wired. March 11, 2008. At the time, the site was getting viewed 500,000 times daily, which Huh notes was "fantastic for a cat picture site that nobody understood."[Cook, John]
Venture Blog. November 6, 2008. He likes to joke that his investor pitch was "I would like to start a media company by buying a cat picture website. Can you give me $2.25 million?"[McCarthy, Brad]
Cheezburgers Ben Huh On Education, Entrepreneurship, and 5 minutes of happiness
The Next Web. May 13, 2011. Huh states that "we felt like that there was a pretty good possibility that we were buying into a cultural phenomenon, a shift in the way people perceived entertainment."[
Currently, Huh runs Cheezburger, which received 375 million page views a month in 2011 across its 50 sites, including I Can Has Cheezburger, FAIL Blog, ]The Daily What
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in ...
, Know Your Meme, and Memebase.[Dudley, Brier]
Cheezburger's first venture financing raises $30 million
The Seattle Times. January 18, 2011. The content is user-generated
User-generated content (UGC), alternatively known as user-created content (UCC), is any form of content, such as images, videos, text, testimonials, and audio, that has been posted by users on online platforms such as social media, discussion f ...
, with users allowed to upload images and add text captions throughout its network of sites. The best are culled by Cheezburger employees and users and posted to the front pages daily.[ Although Huh does not reveal financial specifics, '' Wired'' speculated that the network makes $4 million in yearly revenue, which comes mainly from display ads, books, and merchandise.][ The Cheezburger Network has raised $30 million in venture funding in January 2011, currently employs 75 people, and has been profitable since its first quarter.][Fitzpatrick, Laura]
Building a Media Empire Around I Can Has Cheezburger
TIME. August 24, 2009. They've released five books, two of which are ''New York Times'' bestsellers.[
In 2012, Huh announced he was taking on a new project called Circa that wants to "reimagine the way you consume news."][Huh, Ben]
Circa
. Betabeat. April 27, 2012. In April 2012, Circa raised $750K in Series A funding, before being shut down in 2015 and subsequently reopened under different ownership.[Roy, Jessica]
I CAN HAZ SEED ROUND: Ben Huh’s News Startup Circa Raises $750K
. Betabeat. April 27, 2012.["Set to Launch Digital News Site Circa, Sinclair Taps John Solomon as COO,"]
from ''Broadcasting & Cable'', 12/7/2015
In July 2013, Huh told the media that his decision to make 24 job cuts at Cheezburger, amounting to a third of the firm's employees, was one of the most difficult weeks he had ever experienced.
Social Construct
Huh founded Social Construct, a technology company that assembled "buildings with software-generated floor plans and rooms that fit together like Lego bricks." The company was founded in 2017 from the New Cities moonshot project at Y Combinator, where Huh worked after leaving The Cheezburger Network. The company raised $17M from Y Combinator and Founders Fund and broke ground on a multi-family building in Oakland, CA before shutting down during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021.
Orange DAO
Huh then went on to co-lead Orange DAO, a decentralized autonomous organization with a membership of more than 1,000 Y Combinator alumni.
Television
Huh is the central figure in the '' LOLwork'' reality television series on the Bravo television network. The series follows Ben Huh and his staff at Cheezburger
I Can Has Cheezburger? (abbreviated as ICHC) is a blog-format website featuring videos (usually involving animals) and image macros. It was created in 2007 by Eric Nakagawa (Cheezburger), from Hawaii, and his friend Kari Unebasami (Tofuburge ...
as they create new content for the site.
Reception
Huh has been a speaker at SXSW
South by Southwest, abbreviated as SXSW and colloquially referred to as South By, is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, Te ...
, Web 2.0 Summit and TEDx Seattle. In 2010, Huh was named to '' Fast Companys list of the "Most Creative People in Business." He was also named to GQ's list of the "Worst-Dressed Men in Silicon Valley"; in response to this, he challenged GQ to a fashion duel.[Hope, Clover]
The 15 Worst-Dressed Men of Silicon Valley
GQ. August 3, 2011.
Awards
Huh received the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year Award in 2011.
Personal life
Huh lives in Seattle, Washington with his wife Emily and poodle mix, Nemo.[Mcedward, Laura]
Entrepreneur’s Kitty Site Now A Caboodle
LA Times. September 23, 2008.[Wortham, Jenna]
The New York Times. June 13, 2010. He also runs The Moby Dick Project, which aims to change how news is presented.[Cook, John]
Cheezburger CEO Ben Huh’s latest voyage: It’s time ‘to rethink journalism’
GeekWire. May 23, 2011. He is allergic to cats.[McCarthy, Caroline]
CNET. October 8, 2008.
References
External links
BenHuh!com
Official blog.
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Huh, Ben
1979 births
Living people
American bloggers
People from Seoul
Businesspeople from Seattle
People from Rancho Cordova, California
South Korean emigrants to the United States
People from San Francisco
Entrepreneurship in the United States