JASON McCABE CALACANIS is the former editor and founder of Silicon Alley Reporter magazine, which was rebranded VentureReporter.net after the dotcom bubble burst. VentureReporter.net was acquired by Dow Jones in the first quarter of 2004. In the fall of 2003, Calacanis hatched the concept of the Weblogs, Inc. Network, which he sold to AOL for $25 million.
He is the founder of the LAUNCH Festival and the curated news site, Inside.com.
In May 2007, he founded Mahalo (Hawaiian for “thank you”), a search service with manually edited results. It was while he was an entrepreneur in residence at Sequoia that Calacanis had the inspiration for Mahalo which has completed two rounds of financing, including backing from the News Corporation and Burda Media in Germany.
Calacanis is a highly-regarded expert on issues related to media, finance, technology, the Internet and public policy. He regularly appears in the press and has been featured in and appeared on media outlets including The New York Times, The New Yorker, Wired, The Charlie Rose Show, 60 Minutes, CNN, CNBC, CNNfn, Bloomberg, Fox News, ABC News, and Nightline.