Peter Rojas (Betaworks Ventures) on the Origins of Gizmodo and Engadget (Part 1)

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The Guest

Peter Rojas was the co-founder of a few very popular technology blogs, including Gizmodo, Engadget, and Joystiq. The latter two were part of Weblogs, Inc., which was acquired by AOL in 2005. He later co-founded the consumer electronics social networking site, gdgt, which AOL also acquired in 2013. Post-acquisition, Peter stayed for a couple of years as the VP of Strategy and director of AOL's experimental products group.

Now Peter is a partner at Betaworks, a startup studio and seed stage venture capital company based in New York City and San Francisco that invests in network-focused, consumer-facing media businesses.

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The Conversation

This is the first of two parts of my conversation with Peter. In this part, we talk about Peter’s transition from studying English to being a brash, young tech journalist. We talk about the origins of Gizmodo and Engadget, and he shares some stories from the trenches.

We get into Peter’s ambitions for his third startup, gdgt, his time at ALO, and his transition to becoming a seed-stage investor at Betaworks.

I think you’ll really enjoy the stories he shares in this one.

In the second episode, we get into startup investing, augmented reality, virtual reality, and even synthetic reality.

The Request

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Jason McDowallVR, AR smartglasses, investor, consumer