He puts his signature on luxury bikes, writes books, creates films and makes games. And lately, he's monopolizing the social media space, as the man who could become the new Mark Zuckerberg.
Paul Budnitz says he doesn't aim to compete with Facebook. Yet Ello, the social media platform he created, is gaining over 30,000 new subscribers every hour.
The 47-year-old is certainly a multifaceted personality. Owner of a bike shop in Vermont, which bears his last name. Author, photographer and filmmaker and owner of Kidrobot, a company that makes toys, clothes and accessories. To his extensive resume he has now added Ello, which he co-founded and is a kind of anti-Facebook, as it has no ads, does not sell users' personal data to third parties, while registration is by invitation only.
His father was a nuclear physicist and his mother a social worker, but it was his grandfather who, as a small-town doctor, had diagnosed Badnitz's peculiarity early on. "He said I was missing the gene that warns you're about to take a big risk and that my life was stupid and dangerous," he writes on his website.
Having studied at Yale, upon graduating in 1990, he immediately began working on two films, “93 Million Miles from the Sun” and “Ultraviolet,” both of which won awards at the Berlin Film Festival. This was only the beginning, however, as Budnitz constantly found new interests, which he added to his professional activity.
He now splits his time between Burlington—where the bike shop and Ello headquarters are located—and New York City. He once swore he would never touch a computer again. That was when he was in college and had left behind his childhood days of making video games for the now-legendary Commodore 64. Fortunately, for the world of social media, he broke his promise.
Source: iefimerida.gr
