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NEW YORK, NY — Waywire Networks today announced that it has brought two remarkable technical talents into the company’s expanding video platform team. Ben Fisher has joined as Chief Technology Officer, bringing more than ten years of technology innovation and leadership from the video and social networking spaces. Neil Hunt, the Chief Product Officer at Netflix Inc., has joined the company’s Board of Advisors.
Ben Fisher is a unique triple threat as a technology leader. An engineer and manager with a lifelong love of technology, he began writing code before his teenage years – working with local universities and a division of Sun Microsystems to discover network security vulnerabilities in server hardware. He eventually parlayed that experience into senior roles at Comcast and several B2C startups in New York’s tech ecosystem.
“At this moment in time, the debate between algorithm as recommender vs. human as tastemaker for video content adoption success is still an open one. Waywire’s cur
ation technology has implications for both these methodologies and its leadership in the video channel space generally means there are exciting opportunities for our team to innovate as video becomes more and more prominent,” said Fisher of his new role as CTO.
Neil Hunt, who joined Netflix 15 years ago, has been Chief Product Officer since 2002. Dr. Hunt leads the team responsible for the design and implementation of the Netflix service: content discovery, streaming delivery, apps and devices, and e-commerce. He has expertise in technology, product development leadership and strategy. He brings to the Waywire advisory team a deep understanding of where video has come from, and where, driven by consumer demand, it is going. “It’s clear that consumers are being overwhelmed by raw content,’’ Hunt said. “I’m excited to work with the team and help consumers get the kind of granular content experiences that they’re hungry for, in particular in the narrowcast channels that Waywire is now building.”
Waywire CEO Steven Rosenbaum said: “Until very recently, technologists thought of video as a content item, and video creators have thought of tech as l
ittle more than a delivery medium. Now we’re standing at the edge of a new era in which technologists like Ben and Neil are able to see the power and complexity of video, and embrace the challenges in a way that promises a whole new way to find, share, and organize video channels.” Waywire provides a video curation technology platform for enterprise-level video discovery, storage, delivery, and curation. The network powers large sites, and a growing network of curated consumer-facing sites.
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Mr. Fisher worked at Comcast Corporation from 2011 to 2013 working on video technology, privacy and security initiatives relating to Comcast’s acquisition of NBC Universal. In 2013, he worked at HowAboutWe.com with a small, committed band of engineers that drew wide attention for their new way to approach the dating space and Ruby on Rails challenges. HowAboutWe was sold to Barry Diller’s IAC. From 2013 to 2014 he was at The Knot (XO Group), creating a technology backbone for the women’s lifestyle brand. Mr. Fisher graduated from Washington University in St. Louis.
Dr. Hunt joined Netflix in 1999. His previous career includes research in computer vision, and engineering roles in enterprise tools. He has served on the Board of Directors for Logitech International SA since 2010. Dr. Hunt holds a B.S. from the University of Durham, U.K. and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Aberdeen, U.K.
ABOUT WAYWIRE NETWORKS
Waywire Networks is video curation platform that provides publishers, brands, and web communities with technology to discover, curate and channelize quality video verticals. With video from AOL, Yahoo, Conde Nast, NBC, and hundreds of video sources, Waywire powers sites including TimeOut, AARP, The Root, and many others. Angel and seed investors include First Round Capital, Rose Tech Ventures, Eric Schmidt’s Innovation Endeavors, Next Stage Capital, Linked In CEO, Jeff Weiner, Oprah Winfrey, and Linked In founder Reid Hastings. The Waywire Networks curation technology is protected under U.S. Patents # 8,117,545 and #8,812,956