Halsey McLean Minor Sr. is an American businessman who is known for founding
CNET in 1993, the first comprehensive consumer-facing technology content publisher. He is also the founder or co-founder of the technology companies such as the
virtual reality
Virtual reality (VR) is a simulated experience that employs pose tracking and 3D near-eye displays to give the user an immersive feel of a virtual world. Applications of virtual reality include entertainment (particularly video games), e ...
startup Live Planet,
VideoCoin, and Vivid Labs.
Minor was born in 1964 and raised in
Charlottesville, Virginia.
He moved to
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
to work as an investment banker for
Merrill Lynch. He was an early internet visionary who is the founder of technology companies that have created over $100 billion in cumulative value including CNET,
Uphold, Live Planet,
Salesforce.com
Salesforce, Inc. is an American cloud-based software company headquartered in San Francisco, California. It provides customer relationship management (CRM) software and applications focused on sales, customer service, marketing automation, a ...
, Google Voice, OpenDNS, Vignette and founder of Vivid Labs.
Minor is also the founder of Minor Ventures, a
venture capital
Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to start-up company, startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth poten ...
firm dedicated to helping start-ups. Apart from being actively involved in technology and start-ups, he is an avid collector of fine arts, as well as an ardent horse-racing fan. In June 2013, Minor filed for bankruptcy listing his personal debts.
He continues to have his hand in a number of companies including cryptocurrency company Uphold and Vivid Labs, a publishing and management platform that allows anyone to create, manage and sell multimedia NFTs.
Personal life
Halsey Minor is married to his second wife. He has seven children.
Minor was divorced from his first wife in 2005, Deborah Minor.
He lives in
Beverly Hills, California,
but spends much of his time near his family in Virginia.
He discovered the identity of his biological father who was living 30 miles away from his son in
Benicia, California Minor has donated money to both the Republican and Democratic political parties.
Early life and education
Halsey Minor was born in 1964 in Charlottesville, Virginia. His father was a real estate broker, Charles Venable Minor Jr. His mother bred and trained horses. Some of his grandparents were war heroes in the Civil War
A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country).
The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...
and World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
respectively. His first entrepreneurial project was a "triple-decker version of checkers" that Minor created when he was 9 and tried to sell to Milton Bradley
Milton Bradley (November 8, 1836 – May 30, 1911) was an American business magnate, game pioneer and publisher, credited by many with launching the board game industry, with his eponymous enterprise, which was purchased by Hasbro in 1984, and ...
. Minor started showing an interest in computers around age 10.
As a teenager, Minor started a fence-painting company. He attended the prestigious all-boys boarding school Woodberry Forest in Madison County, Virginia
Madison County is a county located in the Commonwealth of Virginia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 13,837. Its county seat is Madison.
History
Madison County was established in December 1792, created from Culpeper County. The c ...
. Afterwards, he studied anthropology
Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of be ...
at the University of Virginia
The University of Virginia (UVA) is a public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia. Founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson, the university is ranked among the top academic institutions in the United States, with highly selective ad ...
, where he joined the Delta Phi
Delta Phi () is a fraternity founded in 1827 at Union College in Schenectady, New York consisting of ten active chapters along the East Coast of the United States. The fraternity also uses the names "St. Elmo," "St. Elmo Hall," or merely "Elmo" ...
fraternity. He initially wanted to help third-world countries develop their infrastructure.
While in college, Minor started a business called the Rental Network, which was a network of public kiosks with information about local housing rentals. After graduating from college in 1987, Minor considered focusing on the Rental Network business, but his friend's father persuaded Minor to get business experience as a financial analyst first.
Career
Early career
Halsey Minor moved to New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
for his first job out of college working for Merrill Lynch as an investment banker. While there, he created a spinoff called Global Publishing Corporation, which focused on sharing information and training materials across Merrill's IT infrastructure. This was followed by a project with coworker Jeff Bezos
Jeffrey Preston Bezos ( ;; and Robinson (2010), p. 7. ''né'' Jorgensen; born January 12, 1964) is an American entrepreneur, media proprietor, investor, and commercial astronaut. He is the founder, executive chairman, and former preside ...
to develop software that would have provided custom news feeds based on each user's job description and interests. Merrill Lynch signed a three-year contract to fund the news feed project, then cancelled due to Merrill's poor financial results.
Afterwards, Minor spent a year doing consulting work for EastWest Network, which published magazines typically found on airplanes. He was working on a startup idea using satellites to distribute training content at corporations, before a friend offered him a job at a recruiting firm called Russ Reynolds Associates, where he worked as an executive recruiter.
CNET
The idea for CNET was conceived by Halsey Minor in 1992. Minor quit his job to start CNET that December with cofounder and former classmate Shelby Bonnie. Bonnie provided $25,000 in seed funding and Minor obtained some other funding through friends and family members.
Initially, Minor was not able to get any deals with broadcasters to license CNET's TV shows on technology. By 1994, CNET was not able to make payroll. However, that year Minor convinced Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen
Paul Gardner Allen (January 21, 1953 – October 15, 2018) was an American business magnate, computer programmer, researcher, investor, and philanthropist. He co-founded Microsoft Corporation with childhood friend Bill Gates in 1975, which ...
to invest $5 million for a 20% interest in the company. Also, USA Network
USA Network (simply USA) is an American basic cable television channel owned by the NBCUniversal Television and Streaming division of Comcast's NBCUniversal through NBCUniversal Cable Entertainment. It was originally launched in 1977 as Madison ...
bought the rights to CNET's TV show "Central TV."
Minor bought domains like news.com, tv.com, search.com, shopper.com, and download.com. Over time, he focused more on CNET as an internet publication, rather than a broadcast business, culminating in the launch of CNET.com in June 1995. CNET.com would later become what CNET is best-known for and one of the most highly-trafficked websites on the internet. Minor and CNET also helped create the Internet Advertising Bureau (now known as the Interactive Advertising Bureau
The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) is an American advertising business organization that develops industry standards, conducts research, and provides legal support for the online advertising industry. The organization represents many of th ...
) and influenced the development of the online publishing industry. In July 1996, Minor took CNET public.
In 1997, Minor started a search engine called Snap.com with $25 million in funding and 150 employees from CNET. The decision to create a search engine was "universally booed" and caused CNET's stock to decline. However, two years later Minor sold a 60% interest in Snap to NBC
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...
for $500 million. Similarly, investors widely criticized Minor in 1999, when he increased marketing spending
Marketing is the process of exploring, creating, and delivering value to meet the needs of a target market in terms of goods and services; potentially including selection of a target audience; selection of certain attributes or themes to emph ...
from $400,000 to $100 million. However, in hindsight the campaign was later believed to have dramatically increased website traffic and recognition of the CNET brand.
Minor also sold some of CNET's technology rights to a company called Vignette, and he was earning revenue from CNET's advertising sales as the website grew in popularity. CNET joined the NASDAQ 100 and held interests in Vignette, Beyond.com, and others. By 1997, Minor's estimated net worth was $180.2 million. By 2000, his 11 percent interest in CNET alone was worth $495 million.
In March 2000, Minor retired from his CEO position. Minor remained on the CNET board as Chairman, while cofounder Shelby Bonnie took over as CEO.
Post CNET
According to Minor, he left CNET to focus on expanding Salesforce.com
Salesforce, Inc. is an American cloud-based software company headquartered in San Francisco, California. It provides customer relationship management (CRM) software and applications focused on sales, customer service, marketing automation, a ...
, where he was the second-largest shareholder when the company went public. Minor was a co-founder of the company and had made an early investment of $19.5 million from his personal wealth in 1999. He was also an early investor in Rhapsody
Rhapsody may refer to:
* A work of epic poetry, or part of one, that is suitable for recitation at one time
** Rhapsode, a classical Greek professional performer of epic poetry
Computer software
* Rhapsody (online music service), an online m ...
.
Minor started a venture capital firm called 12 Entrepreneuring in February 2000, but it quickly dissolved due to internal discord and the decline of the tech-sector after the dot-com bubble. He created another venture capital firm focused on software-as-a-service companies in 2004, called Minor Ventures. Minor Ventures did well and invested in Grand Central Communications, which was sold to Google in 2007 for $65 million and later became Google Voice. It installed OpenDNS at its San Francisco office, providing coaching, investments, and administrative support to get the company started.
Bankruptcy
Minor said he wanted to focus more on philanthropy and venture capitalism, rather than being a CEO. He eventually lost his wealth on real-estate, horse-breeding, legal disputes, and artwork, culminating in a bankruptcy filing in June 2013. Business Insider depicted the decline in Minor's wealth as "most likely due to his expensive taste in real estate, art, and horses." ''The Washington Post'' said it was a "post-divorce spending spree." Minor said it was a mix of the overall recession and banking crisis, as well as being depressed after his divorce and his father's suicide.
In 2007, Minor bought the historic Carter's Grove
Carter's Grove, also known as Carter's Grove Plantation, is a plantation located on the north shore of the James River in the Grove Community of southeastern James City County in the Virginia Peninsula area of the Hampton Roads region of Vir ...
estate from the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, which he planned to use as a retreat and for horse-breeding. However, Minor never lived at the estate and the vacant 18th century mansion began to fall into disrepair. After he filed for personal bankruptcy in 2013 the property was sold at auction. The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation submitted the only bid at the auction held on May 21, 2014, for the outstanding mortgage amount, and announced that it planned to resell it, with a price increased because of significant costs related to the sale, including over $600,000 in necessary repairs. Around the same time, Minor planned to build a $31 million luxury hotel in his hometown of Charlottesville, Virginia. A dispute formed between Minor and the bank he said was going to provide financing. The project was abandoned in 2009. He also invested in substantial real property assets that declined in value during the housing crisis.
Minor was involved in a series of legal disputes with Christie's and Sotheby's
Sotheby's () is a British-founded American multinational corporation with headquarters in New York City. It is one of the world's largest brokers of fine and decorative art, jewellery, and collectibles. It has 80 locations in 40 countries, an ...
regarding art purchases. A jury awarded $8.57 million to Halsey from Christie's for keeping Halsey’s paintings when the paintings did not sell, despite promising to return them. Minor was required to pay for paintings he bid on but did not pay for. Sotheby’s filed suit for $16.8 million in unpaid debt for paintings Halsey bought. Halsey counter-sued saying that Sotheby’s routinely sold artwork without fully disclosing the paintings were still collateral for the prior owner’s loans. On May 24, 2010, Minor was ordered to pay the $6.6 million-plus he owed Sotheby's for backing out on his winning bids for three paintings.
When Minor declared bankruptcy, he owed $100 million and had only $50 million in remaining assets.
Recent work
In 2014, Halsey Minor founded and launched a bitcoin platform Bitreserve now called Uphold.[ :pt:Uphold]and a virtual reality company called Live Planet. In 2017, Minor created VideoCoin, which uses idle data center servers to support streaming video. In 2021, Minor founded Vivid Labs, a next-generation publishing and management platform that allows anyone to create, manage and sell multimedia NFTs.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Minor, Halsey
1964 births
American computer businesspeople
CNET
Living people
University of Virginia alumni
Merrill (company) people
Businesspeople from Charlottesville, Virginia
Woodberry Forest School alumni