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Jeff Zheng and the Importance of Being Nearby
After years teaching computers what people want to read, NewsBreak founder Jeff Zheng turned his attention to the neighborhood. A coffee shop in Mountain View helps explain where he wants to go next.
The Neighborhood Became the Newsroom
NewsBreak turned the zip code into a distribution strategy. Its next test is whether a machine that knows what is near you can also know what is true.
Reggie Renner Bet the Internet Could Tell Him What It Wanted
A cold email to Mark Cuban opened the door. A recommendation engine supplied the evidence. Reggie Renner used both to build an Indiana media company that now measures attention across 33 brands without pretending a spreadsheet can write the story.
Tom Pachys
Tom Pachys is the co-founder and CEO of EX.CO, a Disney-backed video technology and monetization platform used by publishers including Hearst, CBSi, Time, Nasdaq, and VICE. He started building websites at 12, served in an elite Israeli intelligence-technology unit, was an early leader at SundaySky, and co-founded the machine-learning startup Whimado before co-founding Playbuzz in 2012, which he rebranded into EX.CO in 2019. He now leads roughly 160 people worldwide, betting that AI and supply-path optimization can rescue the economics of online video for the open web.