User:Phibeatrice/sandbox
Fred Benenson | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Benenson in 2024 | |
| Alma mater | New York University (BA) New York University (MPS) |
| Occupation(s) | Programmer, Entrepreneur, Writer |
| Notable work | Emoji Dick Talk Emoji to Me |
| Website | https://fredbenenson.com/ |
Fred Benenson is an American programmer, founder, entrepreneur, and writer. He was the second employee of Kickstarter and worked as an admissions manager at Y Combinator.[1][2] His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, WIRED, and The Los Angeles Times, and in 2009, he created Emoji Dick, an emoji translation of Moby-Dick which was acquired by the Library of Congress in 2013.[3][4][5][6]
Benenson is currently a General Partner at Twenty Two Ventures, a venture capital firm, and serves on the board of Rhizome.[7][8]
Early life and education
[edit]From 2001 to 2005, Benenson studied philosophy and computer science at New York University. As an undergraduate, he cofounded Free Culture @ NYU, a collegiate chapter of Students for Free Culture.[9] In 2008, he began his Masters of Professional Studies degree in Interactive Telecommunications at New York University's Tisch School.[10]
Career
[edit]In 2008, as a master's student at New York University, Benenson began a role at Creative Commons.[11] He was also a research associate at Eyebeam.[12] One year later, in 2009, Benenson became the second hire at Kickstarter and went on to serve as its Vice President of Data.[13] From that year to 2010, Benenson served as an adjunct instructor in the Media, Culture, and Communication department at New York University.[14]
In 2011, Benenson wrote and published Emoji Dick, an emoji translation of Herman Melville's Moby-Dick using Amazon Mechanical Turk, with support from a Kickstarter fundraiser, which was later acquired by the Library of Congress in 2013.[15] Asked about his motive for doing so, Benenson told Technically Media that he wanted to see "what it would be like to take a magnificent achievement of novel-writing and try to boil it down to this relatively new way of expressing ourselves."[6] In 2012, Benenson's emoji-based image of Eustace Tilley was showcased along with other submissions to The New Yorker's sixth annual Eustace Tilley contest.[16] Later, in 2015, Benenson released the book How to Speak Emoji.[17]
In 2016, Benenson joined Y Combinator as an admissions manager.[2] The next year, in 2017, he and Alex Hague, whom he met at XOXO, released the game Pitch Deck, a card game in which players pitch startup ideas to one another.[18] The game was conceived by Benenson in 2015, and for the next two years, Benenson and Hague would develop it and eventually release it with support from a Kickstarter fundraiser.[19]
In 2018, Benenson left Y Combinator to return to Kickstarter as a Kickstarter Fellow in order to work on the platform's creator dashboard.[20] Two years later, in 2020, Benenson created and founded Breadwinner, a company specializing in an IoT device meant to track and monitor the growth and status of sourdough starter.[21]
In 2017, Benenson pitched the "Oyster with Pearl" emoji as a submission to the Unicode Consortium. It was rejected at first but included in Unicode 12.0 in 2019.[22]
Currently, Benenson works at Twenty Two Ventures, a venture capital firm in San Francisco, as a General Partner.[7] He also serves on the board of Rhizome.[8]
References
[edit]- ^ "Origins: Alex Hague and Fred Benenson on turning an idea for a game into a game". thecreativeindependent.com. Retrieved 2024-10-19.
- ^ a b "Welcome Craig, Fred and Mark!". Y Combinator. Retrieved 2024-10-19.
- ^ Benenson, Fred (2019-09-08). "AI Is Coming for Your Favorite Menial Tasks". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2024-10-19.
- ^ Benenson, Fred. "Meet Bennett Foddy: The man behind QWOP and GIRP". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Retrieved 2024-10-19.
- ^ Benenson, Fred (2017-12-18). "Op-Ed: After the death of net neutrality, what will the internet look like?". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2024-10-19.
- ^ a b Popovich, Nadja (2013-12-11). "Fred Benenson: the man who translated Moby Dick into Emoji". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2024-10-19.
- ^ a b "Twenty Two Ventures | Institution Profile | Private Equity International". www.privateequityinternational.com. Retrieved 2024-10-19.
- ^ a b "Rhizome". Rhizome. Retrieved 2024-10-19.
- ^ Fred (2008-09-08). "Free Culture @ NYU Moves On". Fred Benenson. Retrieved 2024-10-20.
- ^ Oct 31, Jen ChungPublished; Mar 7, 2006Modified; 2008Share (2006-10-31). "Fred Benenson, Graduate Student and Halloween Enthusiast". Gothamist. Retrieved 2024-10-19.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) - ^ fbenenson (2009-11-09). "Moving on to Kickstarter". Creative Commons. Retrieved 2024-10-19.
- ^ "Thursday @ EYEBEAM - Copyright & The Creator: Who Cares What's Fair?". Creative Commons. 2009-07-06. Retrieved 2024-10-19.
- ^ Woods, Tyler (2016-06-08). "'Mathwashing,' Facebook and the zeitgeist of data worship". Technical.ly. Retrieved 2024-10-19.
- ^ "Creative Commons, Copyright on the Internet, and the Open Culture Movement". New York Law School Digital Commons. Retrieved October 19, 2024.
{{cite web}}: Check|archive-url=value (help) - ^ "Data Scientists From Tumblr, Kickstarter Confess One Big Goof". Observer. 2012-09-14. Retrieved 2024-10-20.
- ^ Lopez, Christina. "The New Yorker's 'Eustace Tilley' Made With iPhone Emoji Icons". ABC News. Retrieved 2024-10-19.
- ^ Draxler, Breanna (2015-10-02). "A Q&A With the Guy Who Wrote the Book on Emoji". Popular Science. Retrieved 2024-10-19.
- ^ Wagenknecht, Addie. "Pitch Deck Is What Happens When You Invest In Everything Ridiculous". Forbes. Retrieved 2024-10-19.
- ^ "Origins: Alex Hague and Fred Benenson on turning an idea for a game into a game". thecreativeindependent.com. Retrieved 2024-10-19.
- ^ Woods, Tyler (2018-02-12). "Power Moves: Notation Capital adds venture fellow, Fred Benenson back at Kickstarter, more". Technical.ly. Retrieved 2024-10-19.
- ^ Gartenberg, Chaim (2021-03-19). "Breadwinner is the new smart sourdough starter tracker of my dreams". The Verge. Retrieved 2024-10-19.
- ^ "Reconsider the Oyster". Rhizome. 2017-11-22. Retrieved 2024-10-20.