Ryan Block (born June 25, 1982) is a San Francisco-based technology entrepreneur. He was the editor-in-chief of

AOL AOL (formerly a company known as AOL Inc. and originally known as America Online) is an American web portal and online service provider based in New York City, and a brand marketed by Yahoo! Inc. The service traces its history to an online ...

’s

Engadget Engadget ( ) is a technology news, reviews and analysis website offering daily coverage of gadgets, consumer electronics, video games, gaming hardware, apps, social media, streaming, AI, space, robotics, electric vehicles and other potentially ...

before he co-founded the community site gdgt. With gdgt's sale to AOL in 2013, he returned to the company and headed up its product group, but left in 2015 to start a new business. Block co-hoste
MVP
a technology podcast, with frequent collaborator Peter Rojas. There have been no new episodes since October 2, 2016. He lives in

San Francisco, California San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

with his wife, Veronica Belmont.

History

Block joined technology news website Engadget as a part-time reporter in June 2004, and started full-time in June 2005. He went on to replace the site's creator Peter Rojas as

editor-in-chief An editor-in-chief (EIC), also known as lead editor or chief editor, is a publication's editorial leader who has final responsibility for its operations and policies. The editor-in-chief heads all departments of the organization and is held accoun ...

in 2007. In July 2008 Block posted on Engadget that he would be stepping down as editor-in-chief to create a new company, leaving then Associate Editor Joshua Topolsky in charge. On 1 July 2009, using $550,000 in initial seed financing received from

Betaworks Betaworks Studio, LLC is an American startup studio and seed stage venture capital company based in New York City that invests in network-focused media businesses. Its hybrid investor/builder model has led to both investments in fast-growing st ...

and True Ventures, Block and Rojas launched gdgt; a discussion forum that generates reviews and answers questions about thousands of

gadget A gadget is a machine, mechanical device or any ingenious article. Gadgets are sometimes referred to as ''wikt:gizmo, gizmos''. History The etymology of the word is disputed. The word first appears as reference to an 18th-century tool in Glass ...

s. gdgt was sold to

in 2013 , and Block left the company in 2015.

Comcast support call

In July 2014, Block and his wife attempted to disconnect their Comcast service over the telephone and were repeatedly blocked by the Comcast representative in a call which lasted 18 minutes. The last 8 minutes of this phone call was recorded by Block and posted to Reddit, immediately going viral across the internet. The next day Comcast apologized.

References

External links

Ryan Block's website

Engadget
{{DEFAULTSORT:Block, Ryan American Internet celebrities Living people Weblogs, Inc. Writers from San Francisco American technology writers American technology company founders AOL employees 1982 births