John Battelle

Athlete, Blogger, Concerned citizen, Connector, Entrepreneur, Event planner, Idea generator, Musician, Parent, Writer/Editor

Battelle is an entrepreneur, journalist, professor and author who has founded or co-founded a few too many online, event, media and technology businesses. He is the co-founder/CEO of Recount Media, a political media platform currently in development, and serves as a Senior Research Scholar and Adjunct Professor at Columbia University/SIPA. Battelle also runs NewCo, an "inside out" conference model and media platform. He also serves as Chair of sovrn Holdings, a publisher-first programmatic advertising and data platform that proudly serves 100,000+ sites. In 2005, Mr. Battelle founded the Internet media company Federated Media Publishing, where he served as Chairman and CEO until its sale in early 2014. He also serves as a director for LiveRamp, an NYSE listed company. He's a (sort of) active investor with 30+ angel investments in technology and media companies. Battelle co-founded and served as executive producer of the Web 2 Summit (2004-2011) and maintains Searchblog, which covers the intersection of media, technology and culture. From 2001–2004 he occupied the Bloomberg chair in Business Journalism for the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley. He was the founder and served from 1997–2001 as chairman and CEO of Standard Media International (SMI) and as publisher of The Industry Standard and TheStandard.com. Prior to that, he was a co-founding editor of Wired magazine and Wired Ventures. Mr. Battelle previously served on the board of directors of the IAB and was a founding board member of the Online Publishers Association. In 2005, he authored The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture (Penguin/Portfolio), an international bestseller published in more than 25 languages. Cool stuff on the mantle: “Global Leader for Tomorrow” and “Young Global Leader” by the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland; a finalist in the 2000 “Entrepreneur of the Year” competition by Ernst & Young; “Innovator – One of Ten Best Marketers in the Business” by Advertising Age; and one of the “Most Important People on The Web” by PCWorld (hey, that was a long time ago). Mr. Battelle holds a bachelor’s degree in anthropology and a master’s degree in journalism from the University of California, Berkeley. Go Bears!

Finding unique voices to publish (new project). Changing the world by changing the way business is done. Technology as a horizontal force in society. Biking & Yoga.

Rational Discourse

AdTech, Business, Editorial, Entrepreneurship, Events, Interlocution, Marketing, Media - all kinds

Launched two companies here. Wired and The Industry Standard. Only been once since it moved to Vancouver. Looking forward to my second Vancouver edition.

Drumming (well, passable), yoga, interviewing, identifying core narratives in promising companies.