Daniel Kan is an American entrepreneur and technology executive. He is the co-founder and chief operating officer of

Cruise Automation Cruise LLC was an American self-driving car company that became a subsidiary of General Motors, headquartered in San Francisco, California. Founded in 2013 by Kyle Vogt and Dan Kan, Cruise tested and developed autonomous car technology. The com ...

. Kan and Cruise Senior Director

Kyle Vogt Kyle Vogt (born ) is an American technology entrepreneur known for his contributions to autonomous vehicle technology and live-streaming platform technologies. Vogt is a co-founder of Cruise Automation, a developer of self-driving car technolog ...

are listed as number 7 on ''Fortune'''s 2016

40 Under 40 ''Fortune'' magazine's 40 Under 40 is a list of individuals the publication considers to be the most influential young leaders for the year. The list has existed in two phases: From 1999 to 2003, the list was presented purely as a numeric rankin ...

List.

Background

Kan was raised in the Seattle area in a family of entrepreneurs. Kan is the younger brother of

Justin Kan Justin Kan (born July 16, 1983) is an American internet entrepreneur and investor. He is the co-founder of live video platforms Justin.tv and Twitch, as well as the mobile social video application Socialcam. He was also the co-founder and fo ...

, the founder of

Justin.tv Justin.tv was a website created by Justin Kan, Emmett Shear, Michael Seibel, and Kyle Vogt in 2007 to allow anyone to broadcast video online. Justin.tv user accounts were called "channels", like those on YouTube, and users were encouraged t ...

(which later became

Twitch Twitch may refer to: Biology * Muscle contraction ** Convulsion, rapid and repeated muscle contraction and relaxation ** Fasciculation, a small, local, involuntary muscle contraction ** Myoclonic twitch, a jerk usually caused by sudden muscle c ...

) and Socialcam. Kan graduated from Seattle's Lakeside School in 2005

Claremont McKenna College Claremont McKenna College (CMC) is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Claremont, California. It has a curricular emphasis on government, economics, public affairs, finance, and internat ...

in 2009 and planned to pursue a career in finance. Instead, Kan began working for the San Francisco startup

UserVoice UserVoice is a San Franciscobased Software-as-a-Service ( SaaS ) company that develops customer engagement tools.Ha, AnthonyUserVoice Aims Beyond User Feedback''NYTimes''. May 5, 2011.Finley, Klint3 Trends in Idea Management''ReadWriteWeb''. Se ...

. Following his time at UserVoice, Kan founded several companies, including Appetizely and Exec in 2011. Exec operated as an on-demand personal assistant service that most customers used for house cleaning purposes. In 2014, Kan sold Exec to Handy, a San Francisco-based on-demand service company.

Cruise automation

During college, Kan spent a summer interning at

where he met

. Kan later joined Vogt at

in 2014 after the company participated in

Y-Combinator Y Combinator, LLC (YC) is an American technology startup accelerator and venture capital firm launched in March 2005 which has been used to launch more than 5,000 companies. The accelerator program started in Boston and Mountain View, expanded ...

, a startup accelerator that mentors up-and-coming entrepreneurs. Cruise was acquired by

General Motors General Motors Company (GM) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automotive manufacturing company headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, United States. The company is most known for owning and manufacturing f ...

in March 2016, reportedly for over $1 billion. The company plans to hire over 1,100 new employees by 2021.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kan, Dan (executive) American business executives Living people Year of birth missing (living people) American people of Chinese descent Lakeside School (Seattle) alumni