Anthony Wood | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 1965or1966(age 58–59) England |
| Nationality | American |
| Education | Texas A&M University |
| Occupation | Businessman |
| Known for | Founder, chairman and CEO of Roku, Inc. |
| Spouse | Susan Wood |
| Children | 3 |
Anthony J. Wood (born 1965) is an English-born American billionaire businessman who is the founder, chairman and CEO of Roku, Inc. [1] [2] [3] As on April 2021, he owned 15% stake in Roku, and had a net worth of US$7.2 billion. [4]
Wood was born and grew up in Manchester, England, followed by the State of Georgia in the U.S. [1] At the age of 13, he moved to the Netherlands with family, and then lived in Texas in the U.S. [5]
In 1984, when Wood was a teenager, he published "Lunar Lander" in the Ahoy! magazine. [6] Wood earned a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Texas A&M University. [7] He met his wife Susan at this university, where Susan studied environmental design. [5] They have three children, [8] and live in Palo Alto, California. [9]
While in college, Wood founded his first company, "AW Software", to sell computer programs. He also founded "SunRize Industries" while studying engineering, developing software and hardware for the Amiga. [5] [10] [11] After graduating, he founded SunRize version 2. Later, in 1995, Wood launched another company, iBand, which was bought by Macromedia for $36 million. Wood became the vice president of Internet authoring at Macromedia. [12]
Wood left Macromedia in September 1997 to launch ReplayTV, a digital video recorder (DVR) maker. [13] Wood began working on the DVR development reportedly after being "frustrated" at missing episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation. [12] Features introduced by ReplayTV included ad-skipping, rewinding and pausing live television. [14] [15] Wood sold ReplayTV in 2002 to SONICblue Incorporated for US$42 million. [15]
In 2002, Wood founded Roku, Inc., his sixth startup, to market home digital devices. "Roku" means “six” in Japanese. [13] In 2007 Netflix, Inc. employed Wood as the vice president of Netflix's "Internet TV", directly under Reed Hastings. [15] Wood continued to be the CEO of Roku in this period. [2] At Netflix, he built a team which developed a Netflix-streaming player as well as applications allowing PC users to stream Netflix onto their computers. Netflix later spun Wood’s engineering team back out to Roku. [13]
In 2021, Wood and his wife, Susan, donated $48.2 million to create the "WoodNext Foundation", a Texas based philanthropy. [16] Its priorities include mental health, homelessness, scientific and biomedical research, disaster recovery, and economic opportunity with a focus on addressing root causes. [17] Wood made $71 million in charitable commitments in 2022, and appeared on the Chronicle of Philanthropy's list of America’s 50 biggest donors. [18] In 2023, the WoodNext Foundation granted $14.3 million to the University of Pittsburgh for the study of heart disease and dementia, [19] [20] and $1.25 million to establish the BrightEdge Entrepreneurship Fellows Program through the American Cancer Society. [17]
TiVo is a digital video recorder (DVR) developed and marketed by Xperi and introduced in 1999. TiVo provides an on-screen guide of scheduled broadcast programming television programs, whose features include "OnePass" schedules which record every new episode of a series, and "WishList" searches which allow the user to find and record shows that match their interests by title, actor, director, category, or keyword. TiVo also provides a range of features when the TiVo DVR is connected to a home network, including film and TV show downloads, advanced search, online scheduling, and at one time, personal photo viewing and local music playback.
NewTek, Inc., is a San Antonio, Texas–based hardware and software company that produces live and post-production video tools and visual imaging software for personal computers. The company was founded in 1985 in Topeka, Kansas, United States, by Tim Jenison and Paul Montgomery. On April 1, 2019, it was announced that NewTek would be acquired by Vizrt.
ReplayTV was a former DVR company that from 1999 until 2005, produced a brand of digital video recorders (DVR), a term synonymous with personal video recorder (PVR). It is a consumer video device which allows users to capture television programming to internal hard disk storage for later viewing. ReplayTV was founded in September 1997 by future Roku founder Anthony Wood, who was president and CEO of ReplayTV until August 2001.
Netflix is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service. The service primarily distributes original and acquired films and television shows from various genres, and it is available internationally in multiple languages.
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The Teaching Company, doing business as Wondrium, is a media production company that produces educational, video, and audio content in the form of courses, documentaries, and series under two content brands: Wondrium and The Great Courses. The company distributes their content globally through a mix of Direct to Consumer models, such as their streaming service Wondrium.com and TheGreatCourses.com, as well as distribution through third party platforms like the Apple TV app, Audible, Amazon Prime, and Roku.
A home theater PC (HTPC) or media center computer is a convergent device that combines some or all the capabilities of a personal computer with a software application that focuses on video, photo, audio playback, and sometimes video recording functionality. Since the mid-2000s, other types of consumer electronics, including game consoles and dedicated media devices, have crossed over to manage video and music content. The term "media center" also refers to specialized application software designed to run on standard personal computers.
Streaming television is the digital distribution of television content, such as television series and films, as over-the-top media service (OTT). Streaming television stands in contrast to dedicated terrestrial television delivered by over-the-air aerial systems, cable television, and/or satellite television systems.
Roku, Inc. is a U.S. public company founded by Anthony Wood in 2002. It runs a streaming TV service through its branded streaming devices and smart TVs, supporting both advertising and subscription models on its platform. Roku leads U.S. streaming TV distribution, and reports over 80 million users globally as of 2023. Beyond the U.S., the company serves markets in Canada, Australia, the U.K., France, Germany, and several Latin American countries including Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru.
PlayOn is a streaming media brand and software suite that enables users to view and record videos from numerous online content providers. The suite consists of two main products: PlayOn Cloud and PlayOn Desktop. PlayOn Cloud is an online service for recording digital video streams, accessible via native iOS or Android mobile device applications. PlayOn Desktop is Windows-based software that acts as a streaming dashboard and hub on the PC. The available streaming websites are organized as channels in both products. Users browse through or search the video content found in those channels in order to record the videos for later viewing. PlayOn Desktop allows watching the videos real-time on the PC, or casting the videos to a TV via a streaming device or gaming console.
Plex Inc. is an American software company that runs its namesake ad-supported streaming media service that provides television shows and movies to users worldwide, and allows them to discuss and discover content across all major subscription streaming services. Plex also develops media server software and a series of apps that allows users to stream their personal media collections from their servers to their various devices. Plex Inc. is based in Campbell, California.
Roku is a brand of smart TV operating systems, smart TVs, streaming devices, and smart home and audio products designed and marketed by Roku, Inc., headquartered in San Jose, California, United States. Roku's smart TV products primarily offer access to streaming media content, including streaming television, from online services.
Sling TV is an American streaming television service operated by Sling TV LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Dish Network. Unveiled on January 5, 2015, at the Consumer Electronics Show, the virtual multichannel video programming distributor aims to complement subscription video on demand services for cord cutters, offering a selection of major cable channels and OTT-originated services that can be streamed through smart TVs, digital media players and apps. The service is available in the United States and Puerto Rico as of 2015.
HBO Now was an American subscription video on demand streaming service for premium television network HBO owned by WarnerMedia subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc. Officially unveiled on March 9 and launched on April 7, 2015, the service allowed subscribers on-demand access to HBO's library of original programs, films and other content on personal computers, smartphones, tablet devices and digital media players. Unlike HBO Go, HBO's online video on demand service for existing subscribers of the linear television channel, HBO Now was available as a standalone service and does not require a television subscription to use, targeting cord cutters who use competing services such as Netflix and Hulu. As of February 2018, HBO Now had 5 million subscribers.
FuboTV Inc., stylized as fubo, is an American streaming television service serving customers in the United States, Canada, and Spain and based in Midtown Manhattan. The network focuses primarily on channels that distribute live sports. Depending on country, channels offered by Fubo may potentially include access to the Premier League, NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, MLS, CPL, and international football, as well as news, network television series, and movies.
The Apple TV app is a line of media player software programs developed by Apple Inc. for viewing television shows and films delivered by Apple to consumer electronic devices. It can stream content from the iTunes Store, the Apple TV Channels a la carte video on demand service, and the Apple TV+ original content subscription service. On iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, Vision Pro, and Apple TV devices it can also index and access content from linked apps of other video on demand services.
The Netflix button is a button available on many modern remote controllers, used to directly connect to the popular streaming service Netflix. It was initially implemented in America in 2011. In 2015, the button was added to European remotes. This button sends an infrared (IR) signal to the television and opens up the Netflix app. Many popular TV companies have adopted the Netflix button, including: LG, Samsung, Sony, and Hisense. Some of the TVs have made it to a list that Netflix has dubbed the "Netflix Recommended TVs". These are TVs that have a Netflix button on them which Netflix recommends to their subscribers to get the best viewing experience for their service. Some low-end laptop computers in emerging markets also ship with streaming buttons, typically including Netflix. Brazilian OEM Positivo has been including Netflix keys on their laptops since 2018.
The Roku Channel is an over-the-top video streaming service owned and operated by Roku, Inc. Launched in September 2017, the service is offered in the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and Mexico. The Roku Channel tops U.S. viewership for free ad-supported streaming TV, and reports 120 million viewers as of 2023.
The Roku OS is an operating system, by Roku Inc., which powers consumer electronics such as smart TVs and streaming devices. Based on Linux, it features a user interface linking into Roku's Channel Store. In 2022, the Roku OS reportedly had 70 million users, and led the U.S. smart TV and streaming device sector.
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