Quick Facts
Biography
Jeff Stibel (born 1973) is an American entrepreneur and brain scientist. He is a serial-entrepreneur and currently, a parter with Bryant Stibel Market Opportunities, a company he co-founded with Kobe Bryant.
Education
Stibel attended Tufts University, Massachusetts and graduated with e Bachelor's degree in Psychology and Cognitive Science. He cites Tufts philosophy professor Daniel Dennett as a mentor. Later, he attended Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, from where he received a Master's degree in Brain Science.
He also received an honorary Ph.D. in business from Pepperdine University, Malibu, California, and gave the commencement address in 2015.
Business Career
Simpli
While studying brain science at Brown University, Stibel co-founded "Simpli" –– an early search engine that offered word-sense disambiguation to search terms. Simpli was a joint collaboration between graduate students (Stibel, David Landan, and John Santini,) post-doctoral fellows (Andrew Duchon and Paul Allopenna,) and psychology and cognitive science professors (James A. Anderson and Steve Reiss from Brown University; and Dan Ariely from MIT; and George Armitage Miller from Princeton university.)
Simpli was sold to NetZero in 2000. It was merged with Search123 in 2001, and in 2004, it was sold to ValueClick (part of Conversant Media,) which continues to use the technology and search engine to this day.
United Online
After Simpli, Stibel joined United Online as Senior Vice President and General Manager. United Online, a result of the 2001 merger of NetZero and Juno Online Services, provided dial-up Internet access to consumers. Over the years, it expanded its range of products and services via acquisitions of Classmates.com (2004,) MyPoints.com (2006,) and FTD.com (2008.)
United Online is currently a subsidiary of investment bank B. Riley Financial.
Interland/Web.com
In 2005, Stibel left United Online to become the President and CEO of Interland. After Stibel joined Interland, the company acquired web.com and rebranded and renamed itself as Web.com, maintaining its original services of web hosting and do-it-yourself websites.
Stibel left web.com in September 2009.
Chair of TrueX.com, Vitaxost.com
After leaving Web.com, Stibel served on the board of various up and coming technology startups including truex.com (2009-2010,) and vitacost.com (2010-2011.)
Braingate
In 2008, he joined the board of Braingate, a company that makes a brain implant system to help those who have lost control of their limbs, or other bodily functions, such as patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) or spinal cord injury.
Dun & Bradstreet
In 2009, Stibel joined Dun & Bradstreet as the CEO and the chairman. He continues to work with the company, currently serving as the chairman and Advisory Council.
Bruant Stibel
In 2013, Stibel, along with basketball player, Kobe Bryant, founded Bryant Stibel –– a venture capital firm that provides strategy, capital, and operational support to businesses with a focus across technology, media, and data.
Neuroscience
As an academic and neuroscientist, Stibel focused most of his academic career on brain science –– the interdisciplinary study of psychology, philosophy, artificial intelligence and neuroscience. He has published numerous academic articles in brain science, psychology, economics and business.
Columnist
He is also a frequent contributor various well-known publishers including Forbes, Harvard Business Review, USA Today, Mashable, The Sacramento Business Journal, American City Business Journals, and Milwaukee Journal Sentinel among others.
Books
Recognition
As an entrepreneur and business executive, Stibel has helped start and grow a number of companies and was listed as one of Business Week's "40 under 40."