Philosopher entrepreneur
So that whole philosopher king thing Plato envisioned in The Republic never quite panned out, but I think us philosophers* might have found a calling in starting and running tech companies.
During breakfast this morning with fellow philosopher entrepreneur Bostjan Spetic of Zemanta, we discussed all the people with philosophy backgrounds running tech companies.
I thought I’d try to crowd source a full list by soliciting your thoughts in the comments or over Twitter.
List of philosopher entrepreneurs in alphabetical order (in progress):
- Fred Benenson, Kickstarter
- Patrick Byrne, Overstock
- Chris Dixon, Hunch
- Greg Galant, Sawhorse Media
- Damon Horowitz, Aardvark
- Andrew Kortina, Venmo
- William Lohse, Pivot Conference
- Ken Reisman, Tlists
- Amol Sarva, Peek
- Bostjan Spetic, Zemanta
I’ve also started a Twitter list of of philosopher entrepreneurs.
*It’s debatable if someone can still be a philosopher while fully engaged in a real profession. Even many of the philosophy professors I had probably wouldn’t qualify as philosophers.
