Jason Johnson is an American technology entrepreneur who has co-founded several organizations including

August Home August, Inc. is a San Francisco-based home automation company, focusing on Wi-Fi connected door locks and doorbell cameras. The company was founded in November 2012 by Yves Béhar and Jason Johnson. On October 19, 2017, Swedish lock manufactur ...

, Founders Den, Rethink Books, and BlueSprig. He also co-founded and chairs the Internet of Things Consortium, a non-profit organization formed by a group of companies in the

Internet of things Internet of things (IoT) describes devices with sensors, processing ability, software and other technologies that connect and exchange data with other devices and systems over the Internet or other communication networks. The IoT encompasse ...

industry. Johnson is CEO of August Home, a

Bluetooth Bluetooth is a short-range wireless technology standard that is used for exchanging data between fixed and mobile devices over short distances and building personal area networks (PANs). In the most widely used mode, transmission power is li ...

-enabled smart lock company he co-founded with Swiss industrial designer

Yves Béhar Yves Béhar (; born 9 May 1967) is a Swiss-born American designer and entrepreneur. He is the founder and principal designer of Fuseproject, an industrial design and brand development firm. Béhar is also the co-founder and Chief Creative Office ...

, and as managing partner of Founders Den.

Early life and education

Johnson grew up in

Portland Portland most commonly refers to: *Portland, Oregon, the most populous city in the U.S. state of Oregon *Portland, Maine, the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maine *Isle of Portland, a tied island in the English Channel Portland may also r ...

Oregon Oregon ( , ) is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is a part of the Western U.S., with the Columbia River delineating much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while t ...

. He graduated from

Pepperdine University Pepperdine University () is a private university, private Christianity, Christian research university affiliated with the Churches of Christ, with its main campus in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Pepperdine's main campus consists ...

Career

Johnson began his career working for Merisel, a distributor of

Apple An apple is a round, edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus'' spp.). Fruit trees of the orchard or domestic apple (''Malus domestica''), the most widely grown in the genus, are agriculture, cultivated worldwide. The tree originated ...

products. He then worked for Tut Systems for a year before founding his first company Interquest in 1997. Before its acquisition by Darwin Networks, Johnson served as CEO of Interquest, a company which installed and operated high speed internet service in many apartment buildings in several U.S. cities including

Seattle Seattle ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the 18th-most populous city in the United States. The city is the cou ...

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

Dallas Dallas () is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the most populous city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of Texas metropolitan areas, most populous metropolitan area in Texas and the Metropolitan statistical area, fourth-most ...

, and

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

In the late 2000s, he became vice president of marketing and business development of Via Licensing Corp., a subsidiary of

Dolby Laboratories Dolby Laboratories, Inc. (Dolby Labs or simply Dolby) is a British-American technology corporation specializing in audio noise reduction, audio data compression, audio encoding/compression, spatial audio, and high-dynamic-range television (H ...

, working on

IEEE standards The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Standards Association (IEEE SA) is an operating unit within IEEE that develops global standards in a broad range of industries, including: power and energy, artificial intelligence systems, ...

to bring together several

patents A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an sufficiency of disclosure, enabling discl ...

and establish standard

royalty payments A royalty payment is a payment made by one party to another that owns a particular asset, for the right to ongoing use of that asset. Royalties are typically agreed upon as a percentage of gross or net revenues derived from the use of an asset or ...

for licensing them. In mid 2010, Johnson co-founded Rethink Books with Jason Illian, Rusty Rueff, and Rick Chatham. They later launched the

ebook An ebook (short for electronic book), also spelled as e-book or eBook, is a book publication made available in electronic form, consisting of text, images, or both, readable on the flat-panel display of computers or other electronic devices. A ...

platform

Bookshout BookShout was a software based eBook distributor that was founded in 2010. Their main offices were based in Dallas, TX, Fort Wayne, IN and New York, NY. It was the largest provider of bulk eBook distribution in the world and worked with all of ...

in April 2012. In January 2011, Johnson co-founded Founders Den, an incubator and coworking space for technology entrepreneurs and company founders, with

Jonathan Abrams Jonathan Abrams is a Canadian engineer, entrepreneur, and investor. He is best known as the founder of Friendster where he worked from 2002 to 2005. He then founded Socializr, where he worked from 2005 to 2010, and Nuzzel, where he stayed from 2 ...

, Zack Bogue and Michael Levit. Johnson continues to serve as the managing partner of the company. Later in 2011, he cofounded BlueSprig with Hugo Dong, a software developer in China with whom he mostly communicated through

Skype Skype () was a proprietary telecommunications application operated by Skype Technologies, a division of Microsoft, best known for IP-based videotelephony, videoconferencing and voice calls. It also had instant messaging, file transfer, ...

and email. Together they launched AirCover, a set of apps to secure mobile devices and protect them from viruses and phishing scams. In 2012, Johnson co-founded

with Swiss industrial designer

. In January 2013, Johnson announced the formation of the Internet of Things Consortium along with several other companies including

Logitech Logitech International S.A. ( ) is a Swiss multinational manufacturer of computer peripherals and software. Headquartered in Lausanne, Switzerland, the company has offices throughout Europe, Asia, Oceania, and the Americas. It is a component of ...

Ouya The Ouya ( ), stylized as OUYA, is an Android (operating system), Android-based microconsole developed by Ouya Inc. Julie Uhrman founded the project in 2012, bringing in designer Yves Béhar to collaborate on its design and Muffi Ghadiali as VP ...

, and

SmartThings SmartThings Inc. is an American home automation company headquartered in Mountain View, California. Since August 2014 it is a subsidiary of Samsung Electronics. Founded in 2012, it focuses on the development of eponymous automation software and ...

. Johnson also hinted at the formation of his own

company. August Home came out of stealth-mode in May 2013 and released a

-enabled smart lock that allows users to control access to their homes through an app. The company later released a smart video doorbell. August Home was acquired in 2017 by the Swedish company

Assa Abloy Assa Abloy AB is a Swedish Group whose offerings include products and services related to locks, doors, gates, and entrance automation. Related products and services include controlling access and confirming identities with keys, cards, tags, ...

, the world's largest manufacturer of locks. Johnson continues to serve as CEO of August Home.

References

External links

Author profile
at ''Entrepreneur'' magazine American technology company founders Pepperdine University alumni Living people American chief executives Businesspeople from Portland, Oregon Year of birth missing (living people) {{DEFAULTSORT:Johnson, Jason