Anthony Wood | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | December 4, 1965 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 December 4, 1965) is an English-born American billionaire businessman who is the founder, Chairman and CEO of Roku, Inc. [1] [2] [3] In 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] He earned a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Texas A&M University. [7] It was there that Wood met his wife, Susan, who was studying environmental design. [5] The couple has three children, [8] and reside 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 2001 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]
Amiga is a family of personal computers introduced by Commodore in 1985. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16- or 16/32-bit processors, 256 KB or more of RAM, mouse-based GUIs, and significantly improved graphics and audio compared to previous 8-bit systems. These systems include the Atari ST—released earlier the same year—as well as the Macintosh and Acorn Archimedes. Based on the Motorola 68000 microprocessor, the Amiga differs from its contemporaries through the inclusion of custom hardware to accelerate graphics and sound, including sprites and a blitter, and a pre-emptive multitasking operating system called AmigaOS.
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., was a San Antonio, Texas–based hardware and software company that produced 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.
A digital video recorder (DVR), also referred to as a personal video recorder (PVR) particularly in Canada and British English, is an electronic device that records video in a digital format to a disk drive, USB flash drive, SD memory card, SSD or other local or networked mass storage device. The term includes set-top boxes (STB) with direct to disk recording, portable media players and TV gateways with recording capability, and digital camcorders. Personal computers are often connected to video capture devices and used as DVRs; in such cases the application software used to record video is an integral part of the DVR. Many DVRs are classified as consumer electronic devices. Similar small devices with built-in displays and SSD support may be used for professional film or video production, as these recorders often do not have the limitations that built-in recorders in cameras have, offering wider codec support, the removal of recording time limitations and higher bitrates.
OctaMED is a music tracker for the Amiga, written by Teijo Kinnunen. The first version, 1.12, was released in 1989 under the name MED, which stands for Music EDitor. In April 1990, version 2.00 was released with MIDI support as the main improvement. In 1991 the first version with the name OctaMED was released, so-called as it could replay eight independent channels on the Amiga's four-channel sound chip. This was also the first commercial version of the software. The publisher had previously been RBF Software of Southampton, UK which was run by Ray Burt-Frost. The current publisher is A-EON Technology Ltd.
The Teaching Company, doing business as "The Great Courses," formerly 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: The Great Courses Plus 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, streamed over the Internet. Standing in contrast to dedicated terrestrial television delivered by over-the-air aerial systems, cable television, and/or satellite television systems, streaming television is provided as over-the-top media (OTT), or as Internet Protocol television (IPTV). In the United States, streaming television has become "the dominant form of TV viewing."
Roku, Inc. is an American streaming technology company, founded in 2002 by Anthony Wood. It produces streaming players and TVs, licenses its technology to other manufacturers, and distributes streaming services on its platform. Roku leads streaming TV distribution in the U.S., reaching 120 million viewers as of 2024. Outside the U.S., the company operates in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the U.K., and Latin American countries including Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru.
Roku is a brand of consumer electronics that includes streaming players, smart TVs, as well as a free TV streaming service. The brand is owned by Roku, Inc., an American company. As of 2024, Roku is the leading streaming TV distributor in the U.S., reaching nearly 120 million people.
Amazon Fire TV is a line of digital media players and microconsoles developed by Amazon since 2014. The devices are small network appliances that deliver digital audio and video content streamed via the Internet to a connected high-definition television. They also allow users to access local content and to play video games with the included remote control or another game controller, or by using a mobile app remote control on another device.
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 did not require a television subscription to use, targeting cord cutters who use competing services such as Netflix and Hulu. In February 2018, HBO Now had 5 million subscribers.
DirecTV Stream is a premium streaming multichannel television service offered in the United States by DirecTV.
FuboTV Inc., operating as FuboTV or Fubo, is an American streaming television service serving customers in Canada, Spain, and the United States and based in Midtown Manhattan. The network focuses primarily on channels that distribute live sports. Depending on the country it is accessed in, channels offered by Fubo 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 Roku Channel is an over-the-top video streaming service available in the U.S., Canada, Mexico and the U.K. Launched in September 2017, it is owned and operated by Roku, Inc. The service leads U.S. viewership for free ad-supported streaming TV and reports 120 million viewers as of 2023.
The Roku OS is an operating system software developed by Roku Inc. It has powered consumer electronics products such as Roku-branded streaming players and smart TVs since 2004. The operating system leads the U.S. smart TV sector and reports 70 million users, as of 2023.
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