Fred Benenson
Fred Benenson | |
|---|---|
| Occupation(s) | Software developer, entrepreneur, author |
| Years active | 2008–present |
| Known for | Second hire at Kickstarter, Emoji Dick project, General Partner at Twenty Two Ventures |
Fred Benenson is an American software developer, entrepreneur, and author. He was the second hire at Kickstarter and has experience working with Y Combinator. His articles have been published in prominent outlets such as The Atlantic, WIRED, and the Los Angeles Times. In 2009, he produced Emoji Dick, an emoji rendition of Moby-Dick, which was later acquired by the Library of Congress in 2013.
Benenson currently holds the position of General Partner at Twenty Two Ventures, a venture capital firm, and is a board member of Rhizome.
Early life and education
From 2001 until 2005, Benenson pursued studies in philosophy and computer science at New York University. During his undergraduate years, he played a key role in founding Free Culture @ NYU, the university’s chapter of Students for Free Culture. In 2008, he embarked on a Masters of Professional Studies program in Interactive Telecommunications at NYU's Tisch School.
Career
While enrolled in his master's program at New York University in 2008, Benenson took on a position at Creative Commons. Concurrently, he held the role of research associate at Eyebeam. The following year, 2009, marked his appointment as the second employee at Kickstarter, where he eventually advanced to Vice President of Data. Between 2009 and 2010, Benenson also contributed as an adjunct faculty member in NYU’s Media, Culture, and Communication department.
In 2011, Benenson authored and released Emoji Dick, an emoji rendition of Herman Melville's Moby-Dick. This project was executed with the assistance of Amazon Mechanical Turk and funded through Kickstarter. Notably, the Library of Congress acquired this work in 2013. When discussing his inspiration for the project with Technically Media, Benenson expressed a desire to explore how a literary masterpiece could be distilled into this emerging form of communication. In 2012, his emoji-crafted depiction of Eustace Tilley was featured among entries in The New Yorker's sixth annual Eustace Tilley contest. Subsequently, in 2015, he published the book How to Speak Emoji.
Benenson joined Y Combinator in 2016. A year later, he collaborated with Alex Hague—whom he met at the XOXO event—to launch Pitch Deck, a card game where participants pitch startup concepts to each other. Initially conceived by Benenson in 2015, the game underwent two years of development alongside Hague before its release, supported by a Kickstarter campaign.
In 2018, Benenson departed from Y Combinator to rejoin Kickstarter as a Kickstarter Fellow, focusing on enhancing the platform’s creator dashboard. Two years later, in 2020, he founded Breadwinner, a company dedicated to producing an IoT device designed for monitoring and tracking sourdough starter fermentation.
In 2017, Benenson submitted the "Oyster with Pearl" emoji proposal to the Unicode Consortium. Although initially rejected, it was ultimately approved and incorporated into Unicode 12.0 in 2019.
Benenson has also been involved in film production. He served as executive producer for The Emoji Story in 2019 and later for Sasquatch Sunset as well as The Apprentice in 2024. Amid financial and contractual challenges surrounding The Apprentice, Benenson and fellow executive producer James Shani played crucial roles in partially financing and acquiring the rights to release the film ahead of the 2024 general election, after traditional studios declined distribution due to its contentious content.
Currently, Benenson holds the position of General Partner at Twenty Two Ventures, a venture capital firm based in San Francisco. Additionally, he serves on the board of directors for Rhizome.