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Ben Pasternak

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Ben Pasternak
Ben Pasternak at Heureka Conference
Born
Benjamin Pasternak

(1999-09-06) September 6, 1999 (age 25)
Sydney, Australia
EducationReddam House, Moriah College
Occupation
Known forCo-founder of Monkey Inc.
TitleCEO of Monkey Inc. [1]


Benjamin Pasternak (born September 6, 1999) is an entrepreneur. He is the co-founder and CEO of the American technology and social media company Monkey Inc., which he created with Isaiah Turner.[2] He began his career while still in high school in Sydney, Australia creating two viral iOS games, Impossible Rush and Impossible Dial.[3] Ben is recognized as the youngest person to receive a round of venture capital in technology, at just 15 years of age.[4]

Fortune Magazine described Pasternak as a young innovator who is changing the world.[5] Pasternak was included in Crain's New York Business Magazine '20 Under 20' list as a teen who cares about the world and wants to make his mark on it. He was also named one of TIME Magazine's Most Influential Teens of 2016.[6]

Early life and education

Ben was born in Sydney, New South Wales, to Anna Pasternak and Mark Pasternak.[7] Pasternak grew up in Vaucluse, New South Wales. He was raised Jewish. He was educated at Moriah College and Reddam House in Bondi, New South Wales. He dropped out of high school in tenth grade.[8]

Pasternak completed his first app, Impossible Rush while bored in science class at school. Impossible Rush and his second app Impossible Dial went on to get millions of downloads and were both the #1 trending app in multiple countries.[9]

Career

Impossible Rush

When Ben was 14 years old he designed Impossible Rush, while bored in science class at school. He showed the idea to his online friend Austin Valleskey, an iOS engineer from Chicago. They completed building the game in a matter of hours and later sold it to Carlos Fajardo who launched the game for them. The game went on to be downloaded millions of times and peaked at #16 on the US App Store (iOS). The game overtook Tinder and Twitter on the App Store (iOS) top charts.[10]

Impossible Dial

Ben released the game Impossible Dial as a follow up to his original game Impossible Rush. The game peaked at #31 on the US App Store (iOS).[11]

Flogg

Ben's early success caught the attention of venture capital firm Binary Capital. Binary Capital agreed to lead a round of venture capital funding in Flogg, they were joined by other investors including Greylock Partners, John Maloney and Paul Bricault. After Pasternak received venture capital funding at 15 years of age, he dropped out of high school and relocated to Manhattan.[12][13]

Flogg is a social networking app for young people to buy and sell. The app launched on April 13th, 2016 and was temporarily the #1 trending app in The United States, Germany and Australia[14].

Monkey

Ben co-founded Monkey, which was launched on November 29th, 2016. Monkey is a video chat based app for teenagers to meet new people.[15][16] The app has been used to make over 500,000,000 calls and has over 2,000,000 users. The app peaked at #26 on the US App Store (iOS).[17][18]

References

  1. ^ http://abcnews.go.com/Business/16-year-high-school-dropout-ceo-tech-company/story?id=39018572
  2. ^ http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/01/16/meet-monkeys-teen-age-founders
  3. ^ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/09/teens-invent-app-impossible-rush-ben-pasternak_n_5955392.html
  4. ^ http://www.wsj.com/video/meet-the-16-year-old-ceo-of-mobile-app-flogg/A4795880-8A1C-4E39-BE08-6F02960CA03A.html
  5. ^ http://fortune.com/2016/09/15/18-entrepreneurs-under-18-teen-business
  6. ^ http://time.com/4532104/most-influential-teens-2016/
  7. ^ Laneri, Raquel (2016-04-14). "Why this high school dropout is actually the most enviable teen in NYC". New York Post. Retrieved 2017-06-01.
  8. ^ http://nypost.com/2016/04/14/this-16-year-old-millionaire-is-living-your-dream-life/
  9. ^ http://mashable.com/2015/01/22/ben-pasternak-australia-tech/
  10. ^ http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/smartphone-apps/is-this-15yearold-australian-the-next-mark-zuckerberg-20141008-10rrzm.html
  11. ^ http://heavy.com/tech/2016/04/ben-pasternak-teen-ceo-flogg-impossible-rush/
  12. ^ http://www.smh.com.au/technology/smartphone-apps/how-aussie-16yearold-ben-pasternak-became-ceo-of-his-own-startup-flogg-inc-20160414-go674s.html
  13. ^ Verma, Adarsh (2016-12-12). "Ben Pasternak – 16-year-old Game Developer And CEO Of A $2 Million Company". Fossbytes. Retrieved 2017-06-01.
  14. ^ https://twitter.com/NathanSchafer99/status/721244759692423168
  15. ^ "Sydney high school dropout sitting on million-dollar empire". news. Retrieved 2017-06-01.
  16. ^ "Monkey, tutti in videochat: il nuovo social dei teenager". Repubblica.it (in Italian). 2017-01-22. Retrieved 2017-06-01.
  17. ^ "High school dropout, 17, making millions from teen-focused apps". Mail Online. Retrieved 2017-06-01.
  18. ^ Bogle, Ariel. "Forget Facebook, forget Snapchat: Teens are doing it themselves". Mashable. Retrieved 2017-06-01.
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