# Rich Skrenta

> Rich Skrenta is an American programmer and entrepreneur who co-founded Topix and served as its founding CEO. He also co-founded the Open Directory Project and Blekko, and is executive director of Common Crawl, connecting a career in web search, news aggregation and open web data.

- **Role:** Executive Director at Common Crawl Foundation
- **Organizations:** Common Crawl Foundation, Topix, Blekko, Open Directory Project, Tobiko, Meta, IBM Watson, Netscape, America Online, Sun Microsystems, Unix Systems Laboratories, Commodore Business Machines, Shadow Island Games
- **From:** Pittsburgh, United States
- **Nationality:** American
- **Education:** BA in Computer Science, Northwestern University, Mt. Lebanon High School
- **Known for:** Co-founded the Open Directory Project, a volunteer-edited web directory acquired by Netscape in 1998., Co-founded Topix and led it through its early news aggregation and community development., Co-founded Blekko, which combined web search with human-curated slashtag filters.

## Career timeline

- **1982** — Wrote Elk Cloner for Apple II computers while a high school student.
- **1989** — Graduated from Northwestern University with a BA in Computer Science.
- **1994** — Olympia launched commercially as a play-by-email fantasy simulation.
- **1998** — Co-founded the directory known as GnuHoo and NewHoo; Netscape acquired it and it became the Open Directory Project.
- **2002** — Co-founded Topix and became its founding CEO.
- **2004** — Topix publicly launched its news aggregation service.
- **2005** — Gannett, Knight Ridder and Tribune jointly acquired 75 percent of Topix.
- **2007** — Chris Tolles succeeded him as Topix CEO; Skrenta continued as a director and adviser. Co-founded Blekko.
- **2009** — Released Olympia source code and associated materials.
- **2010** — Blekko opened its public beta in November.
- **2015** — Blekko technology and team joined IBM Watson following IBM’s acquisition.
- **2023** — Became executive director of Common Crawl.

## Achievements

- Co-founded the Open Directory Project, a volunteer-edited web directory acquired by Netscape in 1998.
- Co-founded Topix and led it through its early news aggregation and community development.
- Co-founded Blekko, which combined web search with human-curated slashtag filters.
- Created Elk Cloner, an early personal computer virus to circulate outside a laboratory.
- Developed Olympia, a long-running play-by-email fantasy simulation.

## Latest updates

- **2026-09** — Co-authored an AWS Public Sector Blog article about Common Crawl’s collaboration with AWS Open Data and the archive’s role in AI research.
- **2026-10** — Common Crawl’s team page continues to identify Skrenta as executive director; the organization released its October 2026 crawl archive.
- **2025-11** — Published a response disputing allegations about Common Crawl’s treatment of publisher content and removal requests.

## Links

- Website: https://www.skrenta.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/skrenta
- Twitter/X: https://x.com/skrenta

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/rich-skrenta
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-10-22