Marc Ruxin

Artist, Blogger, Business adviser, Connector, Entrepreneur, Idea generator, Investor, Marketer, Startup, Technologist

Marc is and entrepreneur, investor and culture junkie. Marc is currently the CEO of Mixhalo, the world's live audio networking company. Prior to that he was CEO of Landseye-Privateer, the largest Cannabis PE fund in the US. Prior to that he was the COO/CMO of Rdio (acq. by Pandora), and the founder and CEO of TastemakerX (acq. by Rdio). Prior to Rdio, Marc was the Chief Innovation Officer at Universal McCann and McCann Erikson. In this capacity worked with media companies on cutting edge brand integrations, and developed groundbreaking cross platform programs with emerging media start-ups to create scalable digital marketing opportunities for clients. Before joining UM/McCann, Marc was chief operating officer of The Mill Group, the leader in commercial visual effects, and Beam.tv, the leading advertising digital asset management system. Before that time, Marc served as vice president of business development at iVast, the early leader in MPEG4 technology, and as vice president of business development and marketing at Eveo, Inc., one of the earliest use- generated content portals. Marc also worked for WPP Group, where he was an MBA Marketing Fellow and ultimately led West Coast new media strategy. Marc sits on the Boards and Advisory Boards of numerous internet and technology start-ups in Silicon Valley as well as being on the BoD of the San Francisco Film Society. He started his career in A&R at EMI Records. Marc has a BA from Hamilton College and an MBA from Columbia Business School, and lives in San Francisco with his wife and three children. Marc blogs about music and film at www.snoozebutton.com, Medium and the Huffington Post.

I am obsessively passionate about indepentent music and film and and the role of social and mobile technology on the sharing and spreading of good art.

Now cultural arts are immediate and accessible on sites like Amazon, Apple, and Netflix, while the time we spend riffling through record bins and bookshelves is dwindling. And so, as the tactile pursuit of the cultural arts disappears, it is only fair to acknowledge how, in many ways, we were never armed with the right equipment in the old days. There was no Amazon collaboratively filtered recommendations to check, no metacritic.com meta scores to cross reference, no social web to tap for peer review. The digitization of content may inspire many people to read more, listen more and watch more. This is good. We will also use fewer unnecessary resources to distribute and consume the content. Less paper = less trees. But as we lose the specific context of discovery we lose something even deeper ... I will never say it better than I did here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marc-ruxin/the-death-of-touch-and-th_b_629569.html

Advertising & Marketing, Consumer Behavior, Consumer Internet, Web 2.0, Digital Advertising and Marketing, Independent Film, Independent Music

7 years ago I finally made it TED after watching it for years from afar. To have been in the room, moved and motivated after three days of mind expanding bliss was truly exceptional. That period of time was instrumental in my deciding to finally start my own company in pursuit of my real passion (the intersection of arts and technology). I owe much to the leap of faith sparked by TED 2011. I can't wait to be there soaking things again.

Scrabble, independent music and film, running, golfing, parenting, connecting, writing.