Jon Oringer (born May 2, 1974) is an American programmer, photographer, and
billionaire
A billionaire is a person with a net worth of at least one billion (1,000,000,000, i.e., a thousand million) units of a given currency, usually of a major currency such as the United States dollar, euro, or pound sterling. The American busin ...
businessman, best known as the founder and CEO of
Shutterstock
Shutterstock is an American provider of stock photography, stock footage, stock music, and editing tools; it is headquartered in New York. Founded in 2003 by programmer and photographer Jon Oringer, Shutterstock maintains a library of around 2 ...
, a
stock media company headquartered in New York City.
Oringer started his career while a college student in the 1990s, when he created "one of the Web's first
pop-up blocker
Pop-up ads or pop-ups are forms of online advertising on the World Wide Web. A pop-up is a graphical user interface (GUI) display area, usually a small window, that suddenly appears ("pops up") in the foreground of the visual interface. The pop-u ...
s."
He went on to found about ten small
startups
A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an Entrepreneurship, entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship refers to all new businesses, including self-employment and businesses t ...
that used a subscription method to sell "personal
firewalls, accounting software, cookie blockers, trademark managers," and other small programs.
In 2003, Oringer founded Shutterstock to provide
microstock photography
Microstock photography, also known as micropayment photography, is a part of the stock photography industry. What defines a company as a microstock photography company is that they (1) source their images almost exclusively via the Internet, (2) d ...
, which has been publicly traded on the
New York Stock Exchange
The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE, nicknamed "The Big Board") is an American stock exchange in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is by far the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its listed c ...
since 2012.
As a result of going public, in 2013 Oringer was reported to be New York's first tech billionaire.
Shutterstock had over 100,000 contributors as of March 2016,
with an "active customer base of 1.4 million people in 150 countries."
Among other accolades, in 2012 Oringer was named New York's Technology Entrepreneur of the Year by
Ernst & Young
Ernst & Young Global Limited, trade name EY, is a multinational professional services partnership headquartered in London, England. EY is one of the largest professional services networks in the world. Along with Deloitte, KPMG and Pricewaterh ...
,
and the following year Oringer was recognized as one of ''
Crain's New York
Crain Communications Inc is an American multi-industry publishing conglomerate based in Detroit, Michigan, United States, with 13 non-US subsidiaries.
History
Gustavus Dedman (G.D.) Crain, Jr. ( Gustavus Demetrious Crain, Jr.; 1885–1973), pre ...
''
40 Under 40.
Early life and education
Jon Oringer was born in 1974
[ in ]Scarsdale, New York
Scarsdale is a town and village in Westchester County, New York, United States. The Town of Scarsdale is coextensive with the Village of Scarsdale, but the community has opted to operate solely with a village government, one of several village ...
, where he spent his childhood.[ He began learning ]computer programming
Computer programming is the process of performing a particular computation (or more generally, accomplishing a specific computing result), usually by designing and building an executable computer program. Programming involves tasks such as ana ...
in elementary school
A primary school (in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Australia, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, and South Africa), junior school (in Australia), elementary school or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary ed ...
at the age of five,[ using his ]Apple IIe
The Apple IIe (styled as Apple //e) is the third model in the Apple II series of personal computers produced by Apple Computer. The ''e'' in the name stands for ''enhanced'', referring to the fact that several popular features were now built-in ...
to code "simple games and plug-ins for bulletin board systems." As he grew older he also developed his own photos as a hobby. Attending Scarsdale High School
Scarsdale High School (SHS) is a public high school in Scarsdale, New York, United States, a coterminous town and village in Westchester County, New York. It is a part of the Scarsdale Union Free School District.
The school was founded in 1917. ...
from 1988 to 1992, by the age of fifteen Oringer was teaching guitar lessons for cash, later moving on to fixing computers out of his parents house when he realized it was more lucrative. Oringer started selling his own software products over the internet when he began attending Stony Brook University
Stony Brook University (SBU), officially the State University of New York at Stony Brook, is a public research university in Stony Brook, New York. Along with the University at Buffalo, it is one of the State University of New York system's ...
in 1993, inventing and selling thousands of copies of what ''Forbes
''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also re ...
'' describes as "one of the Web's first pop-up blocker
Pop-up ads or pop-ups are forms of online advertising on the World Wide Web. A pop-up is a graphical user interface (GUI) display area, usually a small window, that suddenly appears ("pops up") in the foreground of the visual interface. The pop-u ...
s." After graduating with a BS in computer science
Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to Applied science, practical discipli ...
and mathematics in 1997, from 1996 to 1998 he studied computer science at Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
, graduating with an MS. While enrolled at Columbia he continued "trying to create products to complement the pop-up blocker," using a subscription model[ to sell "personal firewalls, accounting software, cookie blockers, trademark managers," and other small programs.] Oringer estimates that he founded about ten small startup companies, most of which had Oringer as the sole employee.
Career
Founding Shutterstock
While marketing his software through a mailing list, Oringer realized that emails with photos were better received than emails without. Finding it difficult to find affordable generic stock photos
Stock photography is the supply of photographs which are often licensed for specific uses. The stock photo industry, which began to gain hold in the 1920s, has established models including traditional macrostock photography, midstock photography, ...
online, in 2003[ he purchased a ]Canon Rebel
Canon or Canons may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* Canon (fiction), the conceptual material accepted as official in a fictional universe by its fan base
* Literary canon, an accepted body of works considered as high culture
** Western can ...
camera to take pictures for a new stock-photo marketplace that catered to advertisers and "microstock photography
Microstock photography, also known as micropayment photography, is a part of the stock photography industry. What defines a company as a microstock photography company is that they (1) source their images almost exclusively via the Internet, (2) d ...
." Oringer went on to take about 100,000 of his own images over six months,[ eventually posting a culled collection of 30,000 images to a new website he named ]Shutterstock
Shutterstock is an American provider of stock photography, stock footage, stock music, and editing tools; it is headquartered in New York. Founded in 2003 by programmer and photographer Jon Oringer, Shutterstock maintains a library of around 2 ...
.[ Funding Shutterstock entirely with his savings,] Oringer rented a 600-square-foot office in New York for the company and initially handled all roles himself, including customer service. Like his previous projects he made the photographs available via subscription, with unlimited downloads and a monthly starting fee of US$49. He also advertised Shutterstock on platforms such as Google AdWords
Google Ads (formerly Google AdWords) is an online advertising platform developed by Google, where advertisers bid to display brief advertisements, service offerings, product listings, or videos to web users. It can place ads both in the result ...
.
Initially hiring friends to serve as models for the stock photos, Oringer later hired a photo director to organize shoots for the company. When demand exceeded his photo supply, he became an agent and hired additional contributors, also hiring a team of reviewers to ensure "editorial consistency and quality."
IPO
In May 2012, Oringer brought Shutterstock public after filing for an initial public offering
An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investment ...
on the New York Stock Exchange
The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE, nicknamed "The Big Board") is an American stock exchange in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is by far the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its listed c ...
, which it completed on October 17, 2012. After going public, Oringer continued to own about 55 percent of Shutterstock, largely through the investment company Pixel Holdings.[ Stock value over the ensuing year increased considerably, and on June 28, 2013,][ Andre Sequin, an analyst at RBC Capital Market,][ announced Oringer as the "first billionaire to come out of ]Silicon Alley
Silicon Alley is an area of high tech companies centered around southern Manhattan's Flatiron district in New York City. The term was coined in the 1990s during the dot-com boom, alluding to California's Silicon Valley tech center. The term has ...
- New York's thriving tech sector." His net wealth at the time was estimated at US$1.05 billion.[
]
Recent developments
In 2014, Oringer spoke at 2014 Class Day at the Columbia University School of Engineering and Applied Science. After maintaining its New York headquarters for years in a Wall Street
Wall Street is an eight-block-long street in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It runs between Broadway in the west to South Street and the East River in the east. The term "Wall Street" has become a metonym for t ...
office, in March 2014 Oringer relocated Shutterstock to the Empire State Building
The Empire State Building is a 102-story Art Deco skyscraper in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. The building was designed by Shreve, Lamb & Harmon and built from 1930 to 1931. Its name is derived from "Empire State", the nickname of the st ...
.
In January 2015, Oringer oversaw Shutterstock's acquisition of both Rex Features, Europe's largest independent photo press agency, and PremiumBeat, a stock music and sound effects service.
Following Shutterstock's decision to implement a tool to censor results in China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
, Oringer defended the company's decision when faced with an employee petition against the system.
In February 2020, Oringer announced that he would be stepping down as Shutterstock CEO effective April 2020, and would become executive chairman.
Awards and recognition
Oringer has been recognized with a number of business awards, and in 2009 he was selected 41st on the Silicon Alley 100, an annual list of the 100 most influential entrepreneurs, investors, executives, and technologists in Manhattan. ''Business Insider
''Insider'', previously named ''Business Insider'' (''BI''), is an American financial and business news website founded in 2007. Since 2015, a majority stake in ''Business Insider''s parent company Insider Inc. has been owned by the German publ ...
'' named Oringer the coolest person in all of New York technology in 2013. Oringer was recognized in June 2012 as New York's Technology Entrepreneur of the Year by Ernst & Young
Ernst & Young Global Limited, trade name EY, is a multinational professional services partnership headquartered in London, England. EY is one of the largest professional services networks in the world. Along with Deloitte, KPMG and Pricewaterh ...
, and the following year Oringer was recognized as one of ''Crain's New York
Crain Communications Inc is an American multi-industry publishing conglomerate based in Detroit, Michigan, United States, with 13 non-US subsidiaries.
History
Gustavus Dedman (G.D.) Crain, Jr. ( Gustavus Demetrious Crain, Jr.; 1885–1973), pre ...
'' class of 2013 40 Under 40.
Personal life
Based in West Village
The West Village is a neighborhood in the western section of the larger Greenwich Village neighborhood of Lower Manhattan, New York City.
The traditional boundaries of the West Village are the Hudson River to the west, 14th Street (Manhattan ...
in Manhattan
Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
, around 2012 Oringer became a certified commercial helicopter pilot.
In 2020, Oringer paid $42 million for a Miami Beach mansion, marking a record on North Bay Road.
References
External links
JonOringer.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Oringer, Jon
Stock photographers
21st-century American businesspeople
Living people
1974 births
20th-century American Jews
American billionaires
Scarsdale High School alumni
Columbia School of Engineering and Applied Science alumni
Stony Brook University alumni
American chief executives
American company founders
People from Greenwich Village
21st-century American Jews