Anil Dash

Background

About Anil Dash

Anil Dash is a recognized advocate for more humane, inclusive and ethical technology through his work as an entrepreneur, activist and writer, and was honored by the Webby Awards with its lifetime achievement award in 2022. Today, he leads Fastly's Developer Experience team, which helps the world's most innovative developers build experiences that make the internet better. Dash joined Fastly with its acquisition of Glitch in 2022, where he served as CEO of the friendly coding community beloved by millions of developers. Dash also serves as a board member for organizations like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the pioneering nonprofit organization defending digital expression, The Markup, the investigative newsroom pushing for tech accountability, and the Lower East Side Girls Club, which serves girls and families in need in New York City. Previously, Dash was an advisor to the Obama White House’s Office of Digital Strategy, co-chaired the Obama Foundation's tech advisory council, served for a decade on the board of Stack Overflow, and was a founding board member of the Data & Society Research Institute. In 2009, he led a MacArthur-backed project pioneering research on social media's impact on public policy making. And during his tenure as CEO of Glitch, the company became the first tech startup ever to voluntarily recognize its workers' union. Described by The New Yorker as a “blogging pioneer”, and by the New York Times as a "Prince scholar", his personal website has been cited in hundreds of newspapers, academic papers and journals. As a writer and artist, Dash was a contributing editor for Wired, has written for publications including The Atlantic, Rolling Stone and Businessweek, co-created one of the first implementations of the technology now known as NFTs, had his work exhibited in the New Museum of Contemporary Art, and collaborated with Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda on one of the most popular Spotify playlists of 2018. Back when Twitter was relevant, Time named @anildash one of the best accounts on Twitter, and he is the only person ever retweeted by both Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Prince. Dash has also been a keynote speaker and guest in a broad range of media and events ranging from the Aspen Ideas Festival to Desus and Mero's late-night show, and guested on a surprisingly large number of your favorite podcasts. Dash lives in New York City with his wife Alaina Browne and their child and two dogs. Like most people, he has never played a round of golf, drank a cup of coffee, filed a patent, or graduated from college.