Daniel Kan is an American entrepreneur and technology executive. He is the co-founder and chief operating officer of Cruise Automation. Kan and Cruise Senior Director Kyle Vogt are listed as number 7 on Fortune's 2016 40 Under 40 List.[1]
Background[edit]
Kan was raised in the Seattle area in a family of entrepreneurs. Kan is the younger brother of Justin Kan, the founder of Justin.tv (which later became Twitch) and Socialcam.[2]
Kan graduated from Seattle's Lakeside School in 2005[3] Claremont McKenna College in 2009 and planned to pursue a career in finance.[4] Instead, Kan began working for the San Francisco startup UserVoice.
Following his time at UserVoice, Kan founded several companies, including Appetizely[4] and Exec[4] in 2011. Exec operated as an on-demand personal assistant service that most customers used for house cleaning purposes. In 2014, Kan sold Exec to Handy, a San Francisco-based on-demand service company.[5]
Cruise automation[edit]
During college, Kan spent a summer interning at Justin.tv where he met Kyle Vogt. Kan later joined Vogt at Cruise Automation in 2014 after the company participated in Y-Combinator, a startup accelerator that mentors up-and-coming entrepreneurs. Cruise was acquired by General Motors in March 2016, reportedly for over $1 billion.[6] The company plans to hire over 1,100 new employees by 2021.[7]
References[edit]
- ^ "40 Under 40: The Most Influential Young People in Business 2017". 17 August 2017.
- ^ "Twitch founder Justin Kan quits Y Combinator to start his own incubator - Silicon Valley Business Journal". Archived from the original on 2017-03-10.
- ^ "Daniel Kan '05 - Lakeside School".
- ^ a b c Clifford, Catherine (26 April 2016). "This 29-Year-Old Entrepreneur Was Rejected by 35 Potential Employers. Now, He's the Co-Founder of a $1 Billion Startup. Here's How".
- ^ Empson, Rip (15 January 2014). "Handybook Hoovers Up Exec For "Under $10M" To Sweep The Home Services Market".
- ^ "GM Buying Self-Driving Tech Startup for More Than $1 Billion".
- ^ Ohnsman, Alan. "GM's Cruise Poised To Add 1,100 Silicon Valley Self-Driving Car Tech Jobs". Forbes.