Jon Oringer
Jon Oringer
Jon Oringer is an American programmer, photographer, and business executive best known as the founder and CEO of Shutterstock, a stock media and editing tools provider headquartered in New York City. Oringer started his career while a college student in the 1990s, when he invented "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...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionBusinessman
Date of Birth2 May 1974
CountryUnited States of America
Rex is 60 years old with 13 million images and 10 million in archive. It's the first time we've had a historic archive to work with, which is super interesting.
Rex has photographers around the world - it's a higher touch business: there are a lot of relationships involved. If you throw an event, there are certain photographers you've worked with before and you want there.
Nobody is opposed to paying taxes; governments need to coordinate, work together and simplify the law.
I hadn't really worked in an office before Shutterstock, so I didn't have the experience of building a culture, nor did I understand how important that is for attracting and retaining the best talent.
In the early days, start-ups make the main mistake of hiring people to do the work that they could do themselves.
I like San Francisco, but I don't think I'd want to work in Palo Alto. It seems like a pretty rough commute. In many ways, I think New York has a lot of things the West Coast doesn't have.
We significantly increased our global presence in 2014. During the year, we expanded the number of languages in which we serve customers to a total of 20.
When I started Shutterstock, I tried to get people access to big events. It's very hard to keep up, to publish them quick, and to get the right photographers.
I started Shutterstock without any outside funding; I believe in creating a lean startup. By not taking outside investors early, I was forced to use every dollar I had as efficiently as possible. And I was able to keep a large part of the company.
I started Shutterstock out of my own need. I'd previously created a few software companies, and each time, I struggled to find affordable images to use on my websites.
I shot images of everything I could find over the course of a year. I would go all over the world and take pictures. In a day, I could easily take thousands.
Editorial imagery licensing includes celebrity, entertainment, sports, and news images that capture what is happening in the world around us.
Each time I went to create my website, I needed imagery. It was complicated to get, the process was expensive, I had to negotiate rights. I knew there had to be a better way.
Equally important to having the right content is providing the proper tools for the users so they can quickly find the images and videos they need.