Dan Kan (executive)

Dan Kan is an American entrepreneur and technology executive. He is the co-founder and chief operating officer of Cruise Automation. Kan and Cruise Senior Director Kyle Vogt are listed as number 7 on Fortune's 2016 40 Under 40 List.[1]

Background

Kan was raised in the Seattle area in a family of entrepreneurs. Kan is the younger brother of Justin Kan, the founder of Justin.tv (which later became Twitch) and Socialcam.[2]

Kan graduated from Claremont McKenna College in 2009 and planned to pursue a career in finance.[3] Instead, Kan began working for the San Francisco startup UserVoice.

Following his time at UserVoice, Kan founded several companies, including Appetizely[3] and Exec[3] in 2011. Exec operated as an on-demand personal assistant service that most customers used for house cleaning purposes. In 2014, Kan sold Exec to Handy, a San Francisco-based on-demand service company.[4]

Cruise automation

During college, Kan spent a summer interning at Justin.tv where he met Kyle Vogt. Kan later joined Vogt at Cruise Automation in 2014 after the company participated in Y-Combinator, a startup accelerator that mentors up-and-coming entrepreneurs. Cruise was acquired by General Motors in March 2016, reportedly for over $1 billion.[5] The company plans to hire over 1,100 new employees by 2021.[6]

References
  1. "40 Under 40: The Most Influential Young People in Business 2017". 17 August 2017.
  2. https://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2017/03/07/twitch-founder-justin-kan-quits-y-combinator-to.html
  3. Clifford, Catherine (26 April 2016). "This 29-Year-Old Entrepreneur Was Rejected by 35 Potential Employers. Now, He's the Co-Founder of a $1 Billion Startup. Here's How".
  4. Empson, Rip. "Handybook Hoovers Up Exec For "Under $10M" To Sweep The Home Services Market".
  5. "GM Buying Self-Driving Tech Startup for More Than $1 Billion".
  6. Ohnsman, Alan. "GM's Cruise Poised To Add 1,100 Silicon Valley Self-Driving Car Tech Jobs".
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