Sam Yagan | |
---|---|
Born | April 10, 1977 |
Nationality | American |
Education | degree in Applied Mathematics and Economics and an MBA |
Alma mater | Harvard University Stanford University |
Occupation(s) | Co-founder of OkCupid Co-founder of SparkNotes Vice-Chairman of Match.com Former CEO of Shoprunner |
Years active | 1999–present |
Spouse | Jessica Droste Yagan (m. 2003) |
Parent(s) | Al Yagan Dr. Haifa Yagan |
Sam Yagan (born April 10, 1977) is an American Internet entrepreneur best known as the co-founder of OkCupid. [1] In 2013, he was named to TIME Magazine's '100 Most Influential People in the World' list. [1] He is the Vice-Chairman of the e-dating site Match.com. [2]
Yagan is the son of Syrian immigrants, Al and Dr. Haifa Yagan, [3] [4] and grew up in Bourbonnais, Illinois, and studied at the Illinois Math and Science Academy and eventually Harvard University.
Yagan holds a bachelor's degree in Applied Mathematics and Economics from Harvard University and an MBA from Stanford University, where he earned distinction as a Siebel Scholar, an Arjay Miller Scholar, and the Henry Ford Scholar, the award granted to each class’s valedictorian. [5] His brother Danny Yagan is an economics professor at the University of California, Berkeley. [6] His wife Jessica Droste Yagan is the CEO of Impact Engine, an impact investing fund. [7]
In 1999, during his senior year at Harvard, Yagan and two of his classmates, Chris Coyne and Max Krohn, started the online study guide SparkNotes. [8] Christian Rudder joined shortly after the founding. A year later they sold the company to Barnes & Noble for $30 million. [9]
eDonkey was a part of MetaMachine Inc and was a peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing network. Yagan was the CEO of MetaMachine Inc. [10] As the developer of eDonkey, Yagan testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee expressing a need for balance between innovation and intellectual property. [11]
In 2006, MetaMachine, Yagan, and founder Jed McCaleb agreed to pay $30 million to avoid potential copyright infringement lawsuits brought by the RIAA. [12] In accordance with the agreement, MetaMachine, Yagan and McCaleb agreed to discontinue distribution of its software as well as to deprecate previous copies of its software. [13]
In 2003, Yagan again teamed up with his Harvard classmates Chris Coyne, Max Krohn, and Christian Rudder to found online dating website OkCupid. [14] Yagan and partners designed OkCupid with a question-and-answer-based system. [15] [16] In 2011, Yagan led the sale of OkCupid to Match Group, a subsidiary of IAC, for $90 million. [17] Yagan was the CEO of Match Group for three years and left at the end of 2015 before joining the company’s public board as vice chairman. [18] While Yagan was CEO, Match Group started Tinder. [19]
In 2009, Yagan, Kelli Rhee, and Kapil Chaudhary co-founded Excelerate Labs with the financial backing from Sandbox Industries. [20] Excelerate Labs merged with Techstars in 2013. [21]
In 2014, Yagan co-founded Corazon Capital with Steve Farsht. [22] Yagan is also the former CEO of ShopRunner, an e-commerce network that provides two-day shipping across multiple merchants. He led the sale of the company to FedEx in December 2020. [23]
In April 2013, Yagan was listed as one of TIME Magazine's '100 Most Influential People in the World'. [1] In 2011, Yagan was named to Crain's "40 under 40" in Chicago. [24]
Sam Yagan is married to his high school sweetheart, Jessica Droste Yagan. [25] [26]
Mark Jonathan Pincus is an American Internet entrepreneur known as the founder of Zynga, a mobile social gaming company. Pincus also founded the startups Freeloader, Inc., Tribe Networks, and Support.com. Pincus served as the CEO of Zynga until July 2013, then again from 2015 to 2016.
Y Combinator Management, LLC (YC) is an American technology startup accelerator and venture capital firm launched in March 2005 which has been used to launch more than 4,000 companies. The accelerator program started in Boston and Mountain View, expanded to San Francisco in 2019, and was entirely online during the COVID-19 pandemic. Companies started via Y Combinator include Airbnb, Coinbase, Cruise, DoorDash, Dropbox, Instacart, Reddit, Stripe, and Twitch.
OkCupid is a U.S.-based, internationally operating online dating, friendship, and formerly also a social networking website and application. It features multiple-choice questions to match members. Registration is free. OkCupid is owned by Match Group, which also owns Tinder, Hinge, Plenty of Fish, and many other popular dating apps and sites.
Match is an online dating service with headquarters are in Dallas, Texas. The company has offices in Dallas, West Hollywood, San Francisco, Tokyo, Rio de Janeiro, and Beijing. Match is owned by Match Group, which owns several online dating services.
Christian Rudder is an American entrepreneur, writer, and musician.
This is a partial, non-exhaustive list of notable online dating websites and mobile apps.
Bradley A. Keywell is an American billionaire entrepreneur. He is the founder and executive chairman of Uptake Technologies, an industrial AI software provider. He is an early investor of Tempus Labs, co-founder of Groupon, Echo Global Logistics, Mediaocean, DRIVIN, and Lightbank. He founded WNDR Museum and Chicago Ideas.
David Cohen is a serial entrepreneur and the founder of Pinpoint Technologies, iContact.com, and Earfeeder. He is also an angel investor with a portfolio of more than 100 companies. Cohen is best known as the co-founder of Techstars, a mentorship-based startup accelerator.
Sandbox Industries is a venture capital firm located in Chicago. The firm focuses on connecting established corporations with disruptive startups via strategic corporate investment funds.
Tinder is an online dating and geosocial networking application launched in 2012. On Tinder, users "swipe right" to like or "swipe left" to dislike other users' profiles, which include their photos, a short bio, and some of their interests. Tinder uses a "double opt-in" system, also called "matching", where two users must like each other before they can exchange messages.
Sean Rad is an American entrepreneur and Founder of the dating app Tinder. Rad launched Tinder in 2012 and by 2014 the company was recording one billion "swipes" a day.
Onevest, a New York–based investment crowdfunding site for startups that was acquired by Business Rockstars in April 2018, allowed entrepreneurs to raise capital from accredited investors. In July 2014, startups launching on Onevest had collectively raised over $66 million.
Bumble is an online dating and networking application launched in 2014. Profiles of potential matches are displayed to users, who can "swipe left" to reject a candidate or "swipe right" to indicate interest. Until 2024 only female users could make the first contact with matched male users, while in homosexual matches either person can send a message first. The app is a product of Bumble Inc.
Match Group, Inc. is an American internet and technology company headquartered in Dallas, Texas. It owns and operates the largest global portfolio of popular online dating services including Tinder, Match.com, Meetic, OkCupid, Hinge, Plenty of Fish, OurTime, and other dating global brands. The company was owned by IAC until July 2020 when Match Group was spun off as a separate, public company. As of 2019, the company had 9.3 million subscribers, of which 4.6 million were in North America. Japan is the company's second largest market, after the United States.
1871 is a nonprofit digital startup incubator in the Merchandise Mart, Chicago, Illinois. It was founded in 2012 by J. B. Pritzker and is the flagship project of The Chicagoland Entrepreneurial Center (CEC), a nonprofit organization that helps entrepreneurs build high-growth, sustainable businesses that serve as platforms for economic development and civic leadership. Led by CEO Betsy Ziegler, 1871 has become a major hub of Chicago's technology and entrepreneurial ecosystem and hosts over 400 early-stage companies as well as nationally recognized accelerators, industry-specific incubators, and tech talent schools. In 2019, UBI Global recognized 1871 as the Top Private Business Incubator in the World and Most Promising Incubator for Women Founders.
Jed McCaleb is an American programmer, entrepreneur, and philanthropist. He is the founder and CEO of aerospace startup Vast and a co-founder and the CTO of Stellar. Prior to co-founding Stellar, McCaleb founded and served as the CTO of the company Ripple until 2013. McCaleb is also known for creating the Mt. Gox bitcoin exchange, and the peer-to-peer eDonkey and Overnet networks as well as the eDonkey2000 application.
Jennifer Lawton is an American businesswoman and applied mathematician. She is COO of Techstars, a startup accelerator.
mHUB is a business incubator for physical product development and manufacturing headquartered in Chicago.
Plated was an American ingredient-and-recipe meal kit service that has been acquired by Albertsons. The company was founded in 2012 and became well known through its participation in Techstars in 2013, Shark Tank in 2014 and Beyond the Tank in 2015. Plated's founders, Nick Taranto and Josh Hix, earned a deal on Shark Tank that fell through, but negotiated a deal with a different Shark Tank investor after the show was filmed. The company accepted several rounds of venture capital investments and remained private until it was acquired by Albertsons in September 2017.
Mandy Ginsberg is an American businesswoman and manager, who is the former CEO of Match Group.
OkCupid and SparkNotes co-founder Yagan is a prominent figure in Chicago's technology scene. He sold the dating company to Match Group parent IAC in 2011 for $90 million and went on to co-found local accelerator Excelerate Labs, now Techstars Chicago.
Many of Tinder's users don't realize that it is owned by Match; the app came from its R&D lab and launched under Yagan's guidance.
Excelerate Labs, Chicago's first and most prominent tech startup incubator, is joining TechStars, a Boulder, Colo.-based competitor
The $13 million Corazon I, also led by Yagan and Farsht, was known for bringing in local entrepreneurs as limited partners, including Inventables founder CEO Zach Kaplan...The firm has participated in Series A-sized rounds for several Chicago startups.