| Jay S. Walker | |
|---|---|
| Born | November 5, 1955 Forest Hills, Queens, New York |
| Residence | Ridgefield, Connecticut |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | Cornell University (graduated 1978) |
| Occupation | Chairman of Walker Digital |
| Spouse | Eileen Walker (m. 1978 - present) |
| Children | 2 |
| Website | |
| www.walkerdigital.com | |
Jay Scott Walker (born November 5, 1955) is an American inventor, entrepreneur and chairman of Walker Digital, a privately held research and development lab focused on using digital networks to create new business systems. Best known as the founder of Priceline.com, Walker has launched and led several successful entrepreneurial ventures and startup companies that today serve more than 75 million customers[1] in 15 different industries. In 2000, Forbes estimated his net worth at $1.6 billion.[2] By October 2000, his estimated worth was down to $333 million.[3]
Walker is named on more than 450[4] issued and pending U.S. and international patents, making him one of the most prolific individual living inventors.
Time magazine twice named Walker one of the TIME Digital 50.[5]
A 1999 Forbes profile of Walker questioned if he was "An Edison for a New Age," noting his reliance on patents as a business model.[6] Businessweek featured him as one of the "Businessweek e.biz 25" in 1999.[7]
Walker Digital is a privately held "innovation and development" lab founded in 1994 and based in Stamford, Connecticut. Since its founding, Walker Digital has funded an R&D budget well in excess of US$100 million.[8] The company specializes in creating applications that work with large-scale networks such as cell phones and the Internet. Walker and/or Walker Digital often partners with Fortune 500 firms such as Time Warner and International Game Technology (IGT) to bring its inventions to market, or licenses other companies to do so.
Contents |
Walker began his entrepreneurial career at age 9 by launching his own newspaper. He attended Cornell University where he majored in industrial relations.
Walker took a year off from his studies to start and run a weekly newspaper, the Midweek Observer, in Ithaca, New York which was initially successful. Walker returned to the university, where he was a member of the Quill and Dagger society and the Sigma Phi Society. He graduated with a bachelor's degree in 1978.
In 1992 Walker and Michael Loeb[9] co-founded New Sub Services, today known as Synapse Group, a company that used the credit card network to process magazine subscriptions. Synapse sells magazine subscriptions chiefly through marketing relationships with credit card issuers, consumer catalog companies, airlines with frequent flier programs, retailers and Internet businesses.[10]
Walker served as the company’s marketing leader and created a customer database of 25 million active buyers.[11] By 1998 Synapse had sold 30 million magazine subscriptions, with sales approaching $300 million.[12] For his work, Walker won the Direct Marketing Association’s "Direct Marketer of the Year" award in 1999.[13]
Synapse grew to become the largest seller of consumer magazine subscriptions in the U.S., leveraging its "continuous service" model to fundamentally change the business of periodicals sales and renewals.[9] In 1999, Walker Digital was awarded a patent,[11] which it assigned to Synapse, for this "continuous service" magazine subscription model.
In 2004, and again in 2005, Synapse was named one of the 25 "Best Places to Work in America"[11] among medium-sized companies by the Great Place to Work Institute. As of 2011[update] Synapse employs more than 250 people.[11]
In 2001 Time Warner purchased a controlling stake in Synapse for a sum in excess of $500 million, completing the transaction in 2006.[9]
Walker Digital launched Priceline.com in 1998, partially self-funding the startup company. Additional funds came from investors[12] including Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, financier George Soros, Lotus Development Corp. CEO Jim Manzi; and cable TV magnate John C. Malone.
Priceline caught public attention with its "name your own price" advertising campaign, using actor William Shatner as its celebrity spokesman: users agree in advance to purchase a service or product “blind”—without knowing precisely which provider would supply the product or service. They might be required to be flexible about travel dates and times, airports and cities.
Sellers could remain anonymous while using the system, to move inventory at discounted prices without appearing to break their publicly advertised price structure. Consumers do not learn from which company they have purchased until after the sale is completed.
Priceline sold an estimated 40,000 tickets in its first quarter of operation.[12] In 1999, Priceline went public.[12] Walker left Priceline in late 2000 to focus on new ventures with Walker Digital.
In 2003 Walker Digital devised an Internet–based surveillance system called U.S. HomeGuard. The basic concept was to hire 1 million work-at-home employees who would log in over the Internet to provide constant surveillance of image feeds from some 47,000 security cameras. These webcams would be installed nationwide at security-sensitive sites including border crossings, water reservoirs, chemical plants, nuclear power generators, airports, etc. Observers would report any suspicious activity to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security within 30 seconds. Wired magazine called the idea "intriguing".[14]
The Atlantic reported that Walker Digital invested several million dollars developing a prototype, offering the sell the system to the U.S. government for $1. Estimating that a test would cost $40 million, Walker said he was prepared to raise private funds for this purpose. On the recommendation of then-Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.), Walker held numerous meetings with White House and DHS officials but the U.S. declined to go forward with the project.[15]
In 2006 CNNMoney[16] cited U.S. HomeGuard as the inspiration for a similar public-private partnership when Texas Gov. Rick Perry announced plans for a webcam-based "virtual border patrol". By late 2008 the result was Texas Virtual Border Watch (www.texasborderwatch.com). In its first four months, the program experienced technical challenges and political controversy; its 43,000 "virtual deputies" were credited with four drug busts and with preventing 30 illegal immigrant crossings.[17]
In 2003 Walker Digital began patenting inventions in the vending machine field with the goal of revolutionizing the vending industry through enabling smart vending technology.
In 2007 Walker Digital exclusively licensed the patents for these innovations to Vendmore Systems, which launched its smart-technology-enabled platform in 2007 under the name QuickStore24TM.
In 2006 Walker Digital entered into a strategic partnership with International Game Technology (IGT), the world’s largest manufacturer of casino games.[18] He worked with IGT to develop innovative concepts and technologies for dozens of networked slot machines and other gaming devices, initially under a comprehensive license agreement.
The first result of the partnership was Guaranteed Play,[19] a new method for casino game players to purchase game play. Customers receive a fixed number of slot machine spins or blackjack hands, known as a "session" of play, at a discounted price, by paying in advance. Guaranteed Play has enjoyed a limited but successful introduction at such casinos as the Red Rock Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada.
In 2010 Walker Digital sold approximately 100 patents to IGT, concluding the partnership.
In 2009 Walker Digital subsidiary Walker Digital Gaming introduced the Perfect Pay baccarat table and Smart Table Network, supporting Elite Baccarat.[20] Industry business journals reported that Perfect Pay utilizes RFID technology to track baccarat wagers, hand outcomes, payouts and player ratings in real time while eliminating losses from dealer mis-pays, counterfeit chips and other problems.[21]
Perfect Pay and Elite Baccarat both won Gold Awards from Casino Journal at the 2009 Gaming Technology Summit.[22]
Genting Berhad, the Malaysia-based owner and operator of the world’s largest casino, the Genting Highlands, has ordered 100 Perfect Pay tables for that facility.
In 2009 Walker Digital and its partners launched a free website for English-language learning, yappr.com which provides non-English-speakers with a way to learn or improve their English. Viewers watch and listen to short film clips with soundtracks in English. Two sets of simultaneous subtitles are provided, one in English and one in the viewer’s language.
In January 2001, the State of Connecticut Attorney General filed suit against Walker Digital. Faced with mounting financial losses, Jay Walker fired 106 of his 125 employees, violating Federal employment law requiring 60 days notice when laying off more than 33% of the workforce. On September 4, 2002, Walker Digital settles for $275,000 to be split amongst the laid off employees.[23]
In October 15, 2009 Walker Digital, LLC filed its first patent infringement action. The suit against Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, and Dell, Inc., was decided on January 3, 2011 as non-infringed.[24]
In November 2010 Walker Digital LLC sued Facebook for friending, or "Method and system for establishing and maintaining user-controlled anonymous communications".[25]
On April 11, 2011 Walker Digital filed 15 lawsuits against more than 100 defendants including Amazon, Google and Microsoft for unauthorized use of its intellectual properties.[26]
Jay Walker is a board member of several organizations that promote innovative solutions to the world’s problems, including:
Walker is a Patron of TED, a small non-profit organisation dedicated to "Ideas Worth Spreading". He is a frequent speaker and contributor to its conferences, having delivered talks on such topics as human imagination[30] and "English language mania",[31] among others.
In April 2011, Walker Purchased TEDMED from Marc Hodosh.[32]
For many years Walker has been involved with the Young Presidents' Organization. YPO’s core mission is to develop "Better Leaders Through Education and Idea Exchange".
Walker has partnered with the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, to develop enhanced communications systems between business and governments.
He has testified[33] before the U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee on economic policy and on how to reform the patent system. He is widely sought as a speaker by business groups, non-profit organisations and the academic community.
Walker funded the development of two public policy documentary films about the space race and the role of science in American life. The first film focused on the impact of Sputnik on America’s education system. The second film, "Sputnik Mania",[34] explored broader U.S. cultural reactions to Sputnik.
Walker owns what he calls "The Walker Library of the History of Human Imagination."[35] Located in his Ridgefield, Connecticut home, the 3,600 sq. ft. private facility contains more than 50,000 volumes including thousands of landmark books and museum-level artifacts. The architecture is a multi-level, maze-like setting, inspired in part by the paradoxical spaces depicted by artist M.C. Escher.
The "library" is the subject of a short documentary film[35] by David Hoffman, and was profiled as "the most amazing library in the world" by Wired magazine.[36] Walker, who refers to himself as the library’s “curator,” has spoken about its theme and displayed some of its contents at the annual TED conference in Long Beach, California.[37] Jay Walker has hosted numerous world leaders from business, government, science, medicine, the arts and education. It is not open to the public.
In 1999 the Direct Marketing Association named Walker its “Direct Marketer of the Year”[13] and the Industry Standard named him the year's "Most Influential New Business Strategist".[12]
In 2009 the Entrepreneurship Program at his alma mater honored Walker as the "Cornell Entrepreneur of the Year".[38]
Walker married Eileen McManus on April 18, 1982. They have two children. Eileen Walker is a trustee for Cornell University, Vice Chairman of the Harvey School in Westchester County, New York and a former personnel executive at IBM.
Jay Walker is a licensed pilot.