Jon Oringer

Jon Oringer (born May 2, 1974) is an American programmer, photographer, and billionaire businessman, best known as the founder and CEO of Shutterstock, a stock media company headquartered in New York City. Oringer started his career while a college student in the 1990s, when he created "one of the Web's first pop-up blockers." He went on to found about ten small startups that used a subscription method to sell "personal firewalls, accounting software, cookie blockers, trademark managers," and other small programs. In 2003, Oringer founded Shutterstock to provide microstock photography, which has been publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange since 2012. As a result of going public, in 2013 Oringer was reported to be New York's first tech billionaire. Shutterstock had over 100,000 contributors as of March 2016, with an "active customer base of 1.4 million people in 150 countries." Among other accolades, in 2012 Oringer was named New York's Technology Entrepreneur of the Year by Ernst & Young, and the following year Oringer was recognized as one of Crain's New York 40 Under 40. Early life and education Jon Oringer was born in 1974 in Scarsdale, New York, where he spent his childhood. He began learning computer programming in elementary school at the age of five, using his Apple IIe to code "simple games and plug-ins for bulletin board systems." As he grew older he also developed his own photos as a hobby. Attending Scarsdale High School from 1988 to 1992, by the age of fifteen Oringer was teaching guitar lessons for cash, later moving on to fixing computers out of his parents house when he realized it was more lucrative. Oringer started selling his own software products over the internet when he began attending Stony Brook University in 1993, inventing and selling thousands of copies of what Forbes describes as "one of the Web's first pop-up blockers." After graduating with a BS in computer science and mathematics in 1997, from 1996 to 1998 he studied computer science at Columbia University, graduating with an MS. While enrolled at Columbia he continued "trying to create products to complement the pop-up blocker," using a subscription model to sell "personal firewalls, accounting software, cookie blockers, trademark managers," and other small programs. Oringer estimates that he founded about ten small startup companies, most of which had Oringer as the sole employee. Career