Talk:Anthony Wood (businessman)

Expand Career section

Hello, I work for Roku, and I would like to expand this article. The current Career section is incomplete. Please rewrite it as follows to include a more thorough account of Wood's career:

Wood was interested in coding at a young age. As a teen he published Lunar Lander in Ahoy Magazine.

While in college, Wood started SunRize Industries which developed software and hardware for the Commodore Amiga. After graduating from college, he founded SunRize version 2. In 1995, Wood launched a third company, iBand, which was bought by Macromedia for $36 million. Wood became the vice president of Internet authoring at Macromedia.

Wood left Macromedia in September 1997 to start ReplayTV, the first digital video recorder. Designed to prevent viewers from missing their favorite TV shows, Wood was inspired to invent the DVR after being continually frustrated at missing episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation. A top competitor of TiVo , ReplayTV won Best of Show in its category at the Consumer Electronics Show in 1999. Features introduced by ReplayTV included commercial skipping and pausing live television. Wood was president and CEO of ReplayTV, which he sold in 2002 to SONICblue for $42 million.

Wood founded Roku in October 2002 and has been the CEO and chairman ever since. Roku means ‘six’ in Japanese, as it is the sixth company founded by Wood. In 2007, Wood worked with Reed Hastings as vice president of internet president of internet TV at Netflix. He brought Project Griffin, Netflix’s streaming player, to production. Roku led to the formation of BrightSign, a company which applies commercial applications of Roku technology. As of November 2017, Wood owned 27.3% of Roku. He holds more than 50 patents to development in DVR and media streaming technology.

References

Thank you for your help. YZ for Roku (talk) 16:13, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

Hi Vazival,

I have taken your feedback into account and revised the suggested edit.

Below is the updated version. I used different sources that are more reliable, and I double checked to make sure that the information in the edit is directly supported by the article. Based on this discussion I understand that Fortune Magazine is indeed a reliable source, so I included sources from that publication:

As a teen Wood published Lunar Lander in Ahoy! magazine.

While in college, He started SunRize Industries which developed software and hardware for the Commodore Amiga. After graduating from college, he founded SunRize version 2.

In 1995, Wood launched a third company, iBand, which was bought by Macromedia for $36 million. Wood became the vice president of internet authoring at Macromedia.

Wood left Macromedia in September 1997 to start ReplayTV, the first digital video recorder. Wood invented the DVR after being continually frustrated at missing episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation. A top competitor of TiVo , ReplayTV won Best of Show in its category at the Consumer Electronics Show in 1999. Features introduced by ReplayTV included commercial skipping, rewinding and pausing live television. Wood was president and CEO of ReplayTV, which he sold in 2002 to SONICblue Incorporated for $42 million.

Wood founded Roku in October 2002 and has been the CEO and chairman since. Roku means ‘six’ in Japanese, as it is the sixth company founded by Wood. In 2007, Wood worked with Reed Hastings as vice president of internet president of internet TV at Netflix. He brought Project Griffin, Netflix’s streaming player, to production.

Roku led to the formation of BrightSign, a company which applies commercial applications of Roku technology.

As of November 2017, Wood owned 27.3% of Roku.

He holds patents to development in DVR and media streaming technology.

References

I hope you will now be able to update the page. Please let me know if there are any outstanding issues, and thanks for taking the time to respond! YZ for Roku (talk) 15:31, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

Add Philanthropy Section

In order to further update this page, I propose a philanthropy section should to address some of the more significant donations that Wood has made.

Wood and his wife, Susan, invested $48.2 million to create WoodNext Philanthropies. They pay specific attention to Texas based causes to provide economic opportunity and the alleviation of poverty.. In 2022, Wood made $71 million in charitable commitments, and was recognized on the Chronicle of Philanthropy’s list of America’s 50 biggest donors He donated $14.3 million to the University of Pittsburgh in 2023 for the study of heart disease and dementia, and $1.25 million to establish the BrightEdge Entrepreneurship Fellows Program through the the American Cancer Society.

Thanks for your assistance in updating the page, YZ for Roku (talk) 23:43, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

The stupid commercials on Roku like FgTeev are very annoying and show perverted content as well as many other ones!!!! Clean the house and show some class!!!! Please 2605:59C8:69BA:1510:ACDA:55EF:62B:5FBF (talk) 22:35, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

References

Tagging Vazival, who was so helpful with the last update. YZ for Roku (talk) 23:43, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

Section added. Vazival (talk) 05:00, 18 March 2024 (UTC)