Blake G. Krikorian (August 18, 1967 August 3, 2016) was an American technology executive and entrepreneur, co-founder of

Sling Media Sling Media Inc. is an American technology company that develops placeshifting and Smart TV solutions for consumers, multiple-system operators and set top box manufacturers. The company is based in Foster City, California, and was a subsidiary of ...

Early life and education

Krikorian was born into an Armenian-American family, the eldest son of Gary Krikorian and Joyce (''née'' Srabian). Krikorian graduated from Mountain View High School in

Mountain View, California Mountain View is a city in Santa Clara County, California, United States, part of the San Francisco Bay Area. Named for its views of the Santa Cruz Mountains, the population was 82,376 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. Mountain V ...

, and in 1989 earned a bachelor's degree in

mechanical engineering Mechanical engineering is the study of physical machines and mechanism (engineering), mechanisms that may involve force and movement. It is an engineering branch that combines engineering physics and engineering mathematics, mathematics principl ...

from the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school the ...

. In high school he was an all-league

water polo Water polo is a competitive sport, competitive team sport played in water between two teams of seven players each. The game consists of four quarters in which the teams attempt to score goals by throwing the water polo ball, ball into the oppo ...

player and swimmer and was chosen for the Junior National Team in water polo in 1985; he played water polo for the

UCLA Bruins The UCLA Bruins are the athletic teams that represent the University of California, Los Angeles. The Bruin men's and women's teams participate in NCAA Division I as part of the Big Ten Conference and the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF ...

from 1986 to 1989.

Career

Krikorian worked first at

General Magic General Magic was an American software and electronics company co-founded by Bill Atkinson, Andy Hertzfeld, and Marc Porat. Based in Mountain View, California, the company developed precursors to "USB, software modems, small touchscreens, to ...

, then in 1994 was a co-founder of Philips Mobile Computing Group, where he was Group Product Manager. He then became Senior Vice President at Metis Associates and led its incubation of Mainbrace Corporation. In 2004 he co-founded Sling Media, a consumer electronics company that builds the

Slingbox The Slingbox was a TV streaming media device made by Sling Media that encoded local video for transmission over the Internet to a remote device (sometimes called placeshifting). It allowed users to remotely view and control their cable televisio ...

, with his brother Jason Krikorian. He served as its

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a chief executive or managing director, is the top-ranking corporate officer charged with the management of an organization, usually a company or a nonprofit organization. CEOs find roles in variou ...

. It was purchased in 2007 by Echostar Communications for $380 million; Krikorian remained CEO and a company director until 2009. In January that year he became CEO of id8 Group Productions, where he founded id8 Group R2 Studios in 2011; after that company's acquisition by

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

, he became head of Microsoft's interactive entertainment business division. Krikorian served on the boards of a number of companies, including

Amazon.com Amazon.com, Inc., doing business as Amazon, is an American multinational technology company engaged in e-commerce, cloud computing, online advertising, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence. Founded in 1994 by Jeff Bezos in Bellevu ...

in 2011–2012. He was also a board partner at the

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 ...

company

Andreessen Horowitz AH Capital Management, LLC (commonly known as Andreessen Horowitz, or a16z) is an American privately held venture capital firm, founded in 2009 by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. The company is headquartered in Menlo Park, California. As of M ...

and was an

angel investor An angel investor (also known as a business angel, informal investor, angel funder, private investor, or seed investor) is an individual who provides capital to a business or businesses, including startups, usually in exchange for convertible de ...

in companies including Clicker.com, FreeWheel, Jaunt, Doppler Labs, and Thync.

Personal life and death

Krikorian's brother

Adam Adam is the name given in Genesis 1–5 to the first human. Adam is the first human-being aware of God, and features as such in various belief systems (including Judaism, Christianity, Gnosticism and Islam). According to Christianity, Adam ...

coached the US women's water polo team to gold medals at the

2012 Summer Olympics The 2012 Summer Olympics, officially the Games of the XXX Olympiad and also known as London 2012, were an international multi-sport event held from 27 July to 12 August 2012 in London, England, United Kingdom. The first event, the ...

and the

2016 Summer Olympics The 2016 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXXI Olympiad () and officially branded as Rio 2016, were an international multi-sport event held from 5 to 21 August 2016 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, with preliminary events i ...

. He was married and had two daughters. He died of a heart attack on August 3, 2016, at the age of 48, after

paddleboarding Paddleboarding is a water sport in which participants are propelled by a swimming motion using their arms while lying or kneeling on a paddleboard or surfboard in the ocean or other body of water. Paddleboarding is usually performed in the open ...

Pacifica, California Pacifica (, meaning "Peaceful") is a city in San Mateo County, California, on the coast of the Pacific Ocean between San Francisco and Half Moon Bay, California, Half Moon Bay. Overview The City of Pacifica is spread along a stretch of sandy c ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Krikorian, Blake G. Silicon Valley people 1967 births 2016 deaths UCLA Bruins men's water polo players UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science alumni People from San Francisco Microsoft people American people of Armenian descent Mountain View High School alumni