Edward Saatchi (born 19 February 1985) is a British

businessman A businessperson, also referred to as a businessman or businesswoman, is an individual who has founded, owns, or holds shares in (including as an angel investor) a private-sector company. A businessperson undertakes activities (commercial ...

and

filmmaker Filmmaking or film production is the process by which a Film, motion picture is produced. Filmmaking involves a number of complex and discrete stages, beginning with an initial story, idea, or commission. Production then continues through screen ...

. He is the chief executive officer (

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 ...

) of

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of computer, computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making. It is a field of re ...

-powered virtual being company Fable. He was formerly a producer at Oculus Story Studio and the CEO and co-founder of political technology company, NationalField.

Early life and education

Edward Saatchi is the son of

Maurice Saatchi Maurice Nathan Saatchi, Baron Saatchi (; born 21 June 1946) is a British businessman, and with his brother, Charles, co-founder of the advertising agencies Saatchi & Saatchi and M&C Saatchi. Early life Maurice Saatchi is the third of four sons ...

and

Josephine Hart Josephine Hart (1 March 1942 – 2 June 2011), also known as Lady Saatchi, was an Irish writer, theatrical producer, and television presenter, who lived in London, England. She is known for her novels '' Damage'' (1991) and ''Sin'' (1992), ...

. His father is an Iraqi Jew born in

Baghdad Baghdad ( or ; , ) is the capital and List of largest cities of Iraq, largest city of Iraq, located along the Tigris in the central part of the country. With a population exceeding 7 million, it ranks among the List of largest cities in the A ...

while his mother was Irish. He was educated at London's

Westminster School Westminster School is a Public school (United Kingdom), public school in Westminster, London, England, in the precincts of Westminster Abbey. It descends from a charity school founded by Westminster Benedictines before the Norman Conquest, as do ...

and

Wadham College Wadham College ( ) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. It is located in the centre of Oxford, at the intersection of Broad Street and Parks Road. Wadham College was founded in 1610 by Dorothy Wadham, a ...

in Oxford, where he took a double first in English Studies. He attended the Sorbonne for graduate studies in philosophy and economics, before leaving for the United States to volunteer for

Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign Barack Obama, then junior United States senator from Illinois, announced his candidacy for president of the United States on February 10, 2007, in Springfield, Illinois. After winning a majority of delegates in the Democratic primaries of 2008, ...

Career

Saatchi was initially rejected in his efforts to join the Obama campaign because of his alien status, but was eventually permitted to participate after personally presenting himself at a campaign office in

Iowa Iowa ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the upper Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders the Mississippi River to the east and the Missouri River and Big Sioux River to the west; Wisconsin to the northeast, Ill ...

. During his tenure with the campaign, he met Aharon Wasserman and Justin Lewis. The three developed an "internal social network" to more easily keep track of campaign data and coordinate communications between managers, staff, and volunteers. The network was rapidly adopted across multiple branches of the campaign and eventually commercialised in its present form as NationalField. He is the company's CEO. In 2011, Saatchi, along with his co-founders, was named in a ''

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine founded by B. C. Forbes in 1917. It has been owned by the Hong Kong–based investment group Integrated Whale Media Investments since 2014. Its chairman and editor-in-chief is Steve Forbes. The co ...

'''s 30 Under 30 list. In 2014, he was part of the founding team of Oculus Story Studio, the virtual-reality filmmaking division of

Oculus VR Reality Labs, formerly Oculus VR, is a business and research unit of Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook Inc.) that produces virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) hardware and software, including virtual reality headsets such as the Qu ...

Fable Studio

In January 2018, Saatchi co-founded Fable studio with Pete Billington. Its premier title was a

virtual reality Virtual reality (VR) is a Simulation, simulated experience that employs 3D near-eye displays and pose tracking to give the user an immersive feel of a virtual world. Applications of virtual reality include entertainment (particularly video gam ...

film titled ''Wolves in the Walls'', based on the

Neil Gaiman Neil Richard MacKinnon Gaiman (; born Neil Richard Gaiman; 10 November 1960) is an English author of short fiction, novels, comic books, audio theatre, and screenplays. His works include the comic series ''The Sandman (comic book), The Sandma ...

and

Dave McKean David McKean (born 29 December 1963) is an England, English artist. His work incorporates drawing, painting, photography, collage, found objects, digital art, and sculpture. McKean has illustrated works by authors such as S. F. Said, S.F. Said, ...

children's book of the same name. Im May 2023, Fable Studio announced an AI project titled "The Simulation", which plans to create a

simulated reality A simulated reality is an approximation of reality created in a simulation, usually in a set of circumstances in which something is engineered to appear real when it is not. Most concepts invoking a simulated reality relate to some form of compu ...

of AI-powered characters with the eventual goal of creating an

artificial general intelligence Artificial general intelligence (AGI)—sometimes called human‑level intelligence AI—is a type of artificial intelligence that would match or surpass human capabilities across virtually all cognitive tasks. Some researchers argue that sta ...

. In July 2023 as part of The Simulation project, Fable Studio released a paper describing their tool named AI Showrunner that can create full animated TV episodes. In June 2024, Fable Studio announced a streaming service, based on their AI tool and also titled Showrunner, that will allow users to create their own episodes.

Personal life

Saatchi told ''

'' in 2014 that he practises Transcendental Meditation, rises before dawn, exercises daily and enjoys films and painting.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Saatchi, Edward 1985 births Living people Alumni of Wadham College, Oxford Barack Obama 2008 presidential campaign British chief executives British computer scientists British expatriates in the United States British software engineers English people of Iraqi-Jewish descent English people of Irish descent

Edward Edward is an English male name. It is derived from the Anglo-Saxon name ''Ēadweard'', composed of the elements '' ēad'' "wealth, fortunate; prosperous" and '' weard'' "guardian, protector”. History The name Edward was very popular in Anglo-S ...

Sons of life peers