Raymond "Ray" King (born 1964) is an American entrepreneur and co-founder of multiple companies including AboutUs.org and Top Level Design, as well as the ICANNWiki project.

Early life, education and career

King was born in 1964 to Kenneth, an architect, and Yien-Koo. He graduated from

The Bronx High School of Science The Bronx High School of Science is a State school, public Specialized high schools in New York City, specialized high school in the Bronx in New York City. It is operated by the New York City Department of Education. Admission to Bronx Science ...

in June 1982. He began his career in technology as a teenager establishing The Computer Workshop, with 17 of his friends, which offered computing classes at his apartment and Manhattan's

Grand Central Terminal Grand Central Terminal (GCT; also referred to as Grand Central Station or simply as Grand Central) is a commuter rail terminal station, terminal located at 42nd Street (Manhattan), 42nd Street and Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, New York Ci ...

. In an interview with ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'', King said: The venture, which taught people how to use

Apple II Apple II ("apple Roman numerals, two", stylized as Apple ][) is a series of microcomputers manufactured by Apple Computer, Inc. from 1977 to 1993. The Apple II (original), original Apple II model, which gave the series its name, was designed ...

and IBM Personal Computer, IBM PCs, earned King $60,000. He later recalled: "We approached people at Grand Central Station and convinced them to come take our courses. We were written up in ''The New York Times''. I made enough money to pay for one year of college at MIT." King remained enrolled at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...

for eighteen months studying computer science before leaving in 1984 to start Semaphore Inc., a company that sold accounting, billing, and project management software to architecture and engineering firms. The company received $4 million in invested capital and grew to 100 employees in four offices by the time it was sold to Virginia-based DelTek Inc. in 2000 for nearly $12 million. After relocating to

Portland, Oregon Portland ( ) is the List of cities in Oregon, most populous city in the U.S. state of Oregon, located in the Pacific Northwest region. Situated close to northwest Oregon at the confluence of the Willamette River, Willamette and Columbia River, ...

to live in a city where he could bike to work, and enjoy a higher quality of living, he founded the secondary market domain name company SnapNames in 2000. The company specialized in "snapping up" expired domain names, which occurred "all the time", according to King. It took in $7.8 million in invested capital and partnered with several of the largest domain name registrars. King was appointed

chief operating officer A chief operating officer (COO), also called chief operations officer, is an executive in charge of the daily operations of an organization (i.e. personnel, resources, and logistics). COOs are usually second-in-command immediately after the C ...

in 2001. He left SnapNames in 2005 to start his next business venture, AboutUs. By 2006, SnapNames was generating gross sales of $49 million. The company sold to California-based Oversee.net in 2007 for $30 million. King founded AboutUs.org, a

wiki A wiki ( ) is a form of hypertext publication on the internet which is collaboratively edited and managed by its audience directly through a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages that can either be edited by the public or l ...

Internet domain directory, in 2006. In November 2006, the company closed its initial financing round for one million dollars. In January 2009, AboutUs secured a $5 million Series A funding round from Voyager Capital, Capybara Ventures, Northwest Technology Ventures and private individuals, including angel investors Tom Holce and Irving Levin. Within three years, AboutUs employed 34 people in Portland and

Lahore, Pakistan Lahore ( ; ; ) is the capital and largest city of the Pakistani province of Punjab. It is the second-largest city in Pakistan, after Karachi, and 27th largest in the world, with a population of over 14 million. Lahore is one of Pakistan ...

. King served as

chief executive officer 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 ...

until he stepped down in 2013. In 2012, King co-founded Top Level Design, a domain name registry for multiple

generic top-level domain Generic top-level domains (gTLDs) are one of the categories of top-level domains (TLDs) maintained by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) for use in the Domain Name System of the Internet. A top-level domain is the last level of ev ...

s, with his brother-in-law and investor Peter Brual. Note: Posted by Nick Mattos. The registry has managed the .design, .gay, .ink, and .wiki

top-level domain A top-level domain (TLD) is one of the domain name, domains at the highest level in the hierarchical Domain Name System of the Internet after the root domain. The top-level domain names are installed in the DNS root zone, root zone of the nam ...

s.http://toplevel.design/our-tlds/ Top Level Design, Our TLDs

Personal life and recognition

King and his wife Deneen have one daughter named Dakota and collect

minimalist In visual arts, music, and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in the post-war era in western art. The movement is often interpreted as a reaction to abstract expressionism and modernism; it anticipated contemporary post-mi ...

art. In 2000, the ''

New York Post The ''New York Post'' (''NY Post'') is an American Conservatism in the United States, conservative daily Tabloid (newspaper format), tabloid newspaper published in New York City. The ''Post'' also operates three online sites: NYPost. ...

'' profiled their five-level townhouse in the

West Village The West Village is a neighborhood in the western section of the larger Greenwich Village neighborhood of Lower Manhattan, New York City. The West Village is bounded by the Hudson River to the west and 14th Street (Manhattan), 14th Street to ...

valued at $7.75 million. In 2009, he received the Oregon Entrepreneurs Network's annual award for individual achievement.

Works

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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:King, Ray 1964 births Living people 20th-century American businesspeople 21st-century American businesspeople American art collectors American chief operating officers American company founders American computer businesspeople American technology chief executives Businesspeople from New York City Businesspeople from Portland, Oregon MIT School of Engineering alumni People from Greenwich Village The Bronx High School of Science alumni

Early life, education and career

Personal life and recognition

Works

Further reading

See also

References