Ricky Van Veen

Last updated
Ricky Van Veen
Headshot of Ricky Van Veen.jpg
Van Veen in 2018
Born
Richard Rafael Van Veen

(1980-12-14) December 14, 1980 (age 43)
Education Wake Forest University (BS)
Occupation(s)Head of Global Creative Strategy at Facebook, Co-founder of CollegeHumor
Years active1999–present
Spouses
(m. 2015;div. 2019)
Caroline Kassie
(m. 2021)

Richard Rafael Van Veen (born December 14, 1980) [1] is an American entrepreneur and the Head of Global Creative Strategy at Facebook. [2] Van Veen co-founded the comedy brand and humor website CollegeHumor and the video sharing website Vimeo. [3] He was also CEO of Notional, a television production company spun out of CollegeHumor.

Contents

Early life and education

Born in Lutherville-Timonium, Maryland, Van Veen is the son of Helen and Richard Van Veen. [4] He graduated from Wake Forest University with a degree in management and information systems in 2003. [5]

Career

Van Veen created CollegeHumor as a student at Wake Forest University. [6] Van Veen's site was earning between $10–15 million a year before the partners sold a controlling stake to IAC/InterActiveCorp. [7] [8] He is also one of the principal owners and founders of Connected Ventures, a company formed around CollegeHumor that included Vimeo and BustedTees. [9]

He made appearances in several CollegeHumor video series, such as Jake and Amir and Hardly Working, [10] and the former MTV program The CollegeHumor Show .

In July 2009, Van Veen was announced to be the CEO of the new production company, Notional, [11] which would be producing material for the traditional media of television. One of Notional's most noteworthy TV shows is Chopped on the Food Network. Van Veen would be mentored by Barry Diller, who is the chairman and senior executive of IAC/InterActiveCorp.

Van Veen also co-founded product company Scroll Commerce in 2015, where he would invent products designed to sell online, including the popular "Homesick Candle." The company was later acquired by BuzzFeed to be the foundation of its new Product Labs division. [12]

Personal life

Van Veen married actress Allison Williams in September 2015. [1] On June 27, 2019, Van Veen and Williams issued a joint statement announcing their divorce.

On July 11, 2021, Van Veen married Chelsea Clinton's business partner, Caroline Kassie.

Related Research Articles

Dotdash Meredith is an American digital media company based in New York City. The company publishes online articles and videos about various subjects across categories including health, home, food, finance, tech, beauty, lifestyle, travel, and education. It operates brands including Verywell, Investopedia, People, The Balance, Byrdie, MyDomaine, Brides, The Spruce, Simply Recipes, Serious Eats, Liquor.com, Lifewire, TripSavvy, TreeHugger, and ThoughtCo. In August 2012, About.com became a property of IAC, owner of Ask.com and numerous other online brands, and its revenue is generated by advertising. In addition to its Manhattan headquarters, Dotdash Meredith maintains offices elsewhere in the New York metropolitan area, as well as in Des Moines, Iowa, and Birmingham, Alabama.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Barry Diller</span> American businessman and media executive

Barry Charles Diller is an American businessman. He is Chairman and Senior Executive of IAC and Expedia Group and founded the Fox Broadcasting Company and USA Broadcasting. Diller was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame in 1994.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">IAC Inc.</span> American media and internet company

IAC Inc. is an American holding company that owns brands across 100 countries, mostly in media and Internet. The company is incorporated under Delaware General Corporation Law and headquartered in New York City. Joey Levin, who previously led the company's search and applications segment, has served as chief executive officer since June 2015.

Etnies is a French-American footwear brand based in Lake Forest, California, United States, and is owned by Sole Technology, Inc. The company sponsors professional skateboarders and BMX riders, LAB more and releases signature shoe models.

GarageGames was a game technology and software developer. GarageGames was the parent company of GG Interactive, developers of educational technology in the areas of computer science, video game development and programming. In addition, the company has been a video game developer and publisher. GarageGames created several game engines targeted for indie development. Founded in Eugene, Oregon, the company had offices in Las Vegas, Nevada, United States and its headquarters in Vancouver, Washington. In 2007, GarageGames was acquired by IAC and the company was renamed TorquePowered. In 2011, the company was purchased by Graham Software Development and reverted to the original name GarageGames.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">CollegeHumor</span> American Internet comedy company

CH Media, doing business as Dropout, is an Internet comedy company based in Los Angeles which produces content for release on its streaming service, Dropout, and on YouTube. It was originally founded as the CollegeHumor website, created by Josh Abramson and Ricky Van Veen in 1999, and was owned by InterActiveCorp (IAC) from 2006 until January 2020, when IAC withdrew funding and the website shut down. The current CEO of CH Media is Sam Reich, a veteran performer and former Chief Creative Officer of CollegeHumor, who purchased the company in 2020 from IAC. In September 2023, the company formally dropped the CollegeHumor branding in favor of its Dropout branding, which originated with its streaming service.

Vimeo, Inc. is an American video hosting, sharing, and services platform provider headquartered in New York City. Vimeo focuses on the delivery of high-definition video across a range of devices. Vimeo's business model is through software as a service (SaaS). They derive revenue by providing subscription plans for businesses and content creators. Vimeo provides its subscribers with tools for video creation, editing, and broadcasting, enterprise software solutions, as well as the means for video professionals to connect with clients and other professionals. As of December 2021, the site has 260 million users, with around 1.6 million subscribers to its services.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">IAC Building</span> Office building in Manhattan, New York

The IAC Building is the headquarters of the media company IAC at 555 West 18th Street on the northeast corner of Eleventh Avenue in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. Designed by Frank Gehry and completed in 2007, it was Gehry's first full-building design in New York City and featured the world's largest high definition screen at the time in its lobby.

<i>The CollegeHumor Show</i> TV series or program

The CollegeHumor Show is an American television sitcom that premiered on MTV on February 8, 2009 and also aired on MuchMusic. The show was a scripted sitcom with sketch comedy elements written by, and starring, nine CollegeHumor editorial staff members, who play fictionalized versions of themselves. The show was an adaptation of the style of the long-running Hardly Working short film series created for the CollegeHumor site, made more suitable for the longer, televised format.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sarah Schneider</span> American writer, actress, and comedian

Sarah Schneider is an American writer, actress, and comedian. She got her start in entertainment as a writer and actress for the comedy website CollegeHumor before becoming a writer for the television sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live, where she worked from 2011 to 2017, including a season as co-head writer alongside writing partner Chris Kelly. She has received eight Primetime Emmy Awards nominations for her work on SNL.

Vimeo Livestream is a video live streaming platform based in New York City that allows customers to broadcast live video content using a camera and a computer through the Internet, and viewers to play the content via the web, iOS, Android, Roku, and the Apple TV. Livestream requires a paid subscription for content providers to use; it formerly offered a free ad-supported service but no longer does so as of 2016.

Electus was a production company founded by Ben Silverman in 2009. It was financed by IAC. The company had development deals with NBC, ABC, MTV, VH1, Facebook, Yahoo!, and AOL. In 2018, IAC sold Electus to Propagate Content.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Allison Williams (actress)</span> American actress

Allison Howell Williams is an American actress. For her work in horror films, she has been deemed a scream queen by the media. She first became known for starring as Marnie Michaels in the HBO comedy-drama series Girls (2012–2017), which earned her a Critics' Choice Award nomination. Her breakthrough came with the role of Rose Armitage in the horror film Get Out (2017), which earned her nominations from the MTV Movie Awards and the Screen Actors Guild Awards among other accolades. She went on to star in the horror films The Perfection (2018) and M3GAN (2022), the latter of which she also executive produced.

Mindspark Interactive Network, Inc. was an operating business unit of IAC known for the development and marketing of entertainment and personal computing software, as well as mobile application development. Mindspark's mobile division acquired iOS application developer Apalon in 2014, which was known for popular entertainment applications such as Weather Live, Emoji Keypad, and Calculator Pro.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mindy Grossman</span> American businesswoman

Mindy Grossman is the former CEO of WW International. The Financial Times listed her in the Top 50 Women In World Business in 2010 and 2011, and she was ranked among Forbes' 100 Most Powerful Women In The World for the years 2009, 2011, 2012, and 2013. In 2014 she was ranked #22 in Fortune's Top People in Business.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jake Lodwick</span> Software engineer, serial entrepreneur and investor

Jacob Lodwick is an American software engineer, businessman and investor, best known as co-founder of Vimeo.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Josh Abramson</span> American entrepreneur

Josh Abramson is an American entrepreneur and co-founder of the comedy website CollegeHumor. He was one of the principal owners and founders of Connected Ventures, whose properties also included Vimeo and BustedTees, and the co-founder, owner, and CEO of the crowdsourced T-shirt design company TeePublic.

Joey Levin is an American businessman, currently serving as the CEO of IAC. Levin was appointed to the position in June 2015, after previously leading the company's Search & Applications segment. In October 2022, Levin was also appointed as CEO of Angi Inc.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sam Reich</span> American producer, writer, and actor (born 1984)

Samuel Dalton Reich is an American businessman, producer, comedian, actor and game show host. He is best known for his work with Dropout, of which he is now the CEO, including hosting the web series Game Changer and its spin-off Make Some Noise, as well as his work on TruTV's Adam Ruins Everything.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anjali Sud</span> American businessperson (born 1983)

Anjali Sud is an American businesswoman and technology and media executive. She is the CEO of Tubi, the entertainment platform and free ad-supported streaming service owned by Fox Corporation. Sud was previously CEO of Vimeo for six years, until August 2023. She was appointed to the position in July 2017 and took the company public in May 2021. Sud is on the boards of Dolby Laboratories and Change.org, is a designated Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum, and was listed as one of Fortune's 40 Under 40 rising business leaders in 2018.

References

  1. 1 2 "Get the Details on Allison Williams and Ricky Van Veen's Wedding (Tom Hanks Officiated!)". People . September 19, 2015. Retrieved September 19, 2015. Ricky Van Veen ... the 34-year-old College Humor co-founder...
  2. "Facebook hires CollegeHumor's Ricky Van Veen to make its giant video business even bigger". Recode . June 8, 2016. Retrieved 2019-02-06.
  3. Kerry King (27 April 2016). "Ricky Van Veen ('03): No Laughing Matter". Wake Forest Magazine. Retrieved 11 December 2020.
  4. "news". Baltimore County, Maryland. Retrieved 2015-05-11.
  5. "Cofounder of CollegeHumor is to speak". wfuogb.com. Retrieved 2020-08-13.
  6. St. John, Warren (2005-07-24). "Sophomorically Incorrect". The New York Times . Retrieved 2008-11-16.
  7. Gangemi, Jeffrey (2006-09-12). "Buying Sites with a Built-in Audience". Business Week . Archived from the original on October 3, 2008. Retrieved 2008-11-16.
  8. "Barry Diller Buys CollegeHumor". Gawker.com. August 15, 2006. Retrieved 2015-05-11.
  9. Mead, Rebecca (2005-01-25). "Funny Boys". The New Yorker . Retrieved 2008-11-16.
  10. "Ricky Van Veen's College Humor Page". CollegeHumor.com . Retrieved 2008-11-16.
  11. Ali, Rafat (2009-07-25). "paidContent - CollegeHumor's New Production Spinoff: Notional; Van Veen's Heading It". The Washington Post. Retrieved 2010-05-22.
  12. "BuzzFeed Wants to Sell You Stuff". Fortune.