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Rich Skrenta

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Rich Skrenta
Skrenta in 2009
Born
Richard J. Skrenta Jr.

(1967-06-06) June 6, 1967 (age 59)
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States
OccupationExecutive Director of Common Crawl
Known forCreating Blekko and Elk Cloner

Richard J. Skrenta Jr. (born June 6, 1967) is an American computer programmer and Silicon Valley entrepreneur who created the web search engine Blekko. He is currently the executive director of Common Crawl.

Early life and education

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Skrenta Jr. was born in Pittsburgh on June 6, 1967. In 1982, at age 15, as a high school student at Mt. Lebanon High School, Skrenta wrote the Elk Cloner virus that infected Apple II computers. It is widely believed to have been one of the first large-scale self-spreading personal computer viruses ever created.[1][2][3] The virus displayed a short poem, among other things and was solved with a reboot.[2]

In 1989, Skrenta graduated with a B.A. in computer science from Northwestern University.[4]

Career

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Between 1989 and 1991, Skrenta worked at Commodore Business Machines with Amiga Unix.[citation needed]

In 1989, Skrenta started working on a multiplayer simulation game. In 1994, it was launched under the name Olympia as a pay-for-play PBEM game by Shadow Island Games.[5][non-primary source needed]

Between 1991 and 1995, Skrenta worked at Unix System Labs,[citation needed] and from 1995 to 1998 worked on encryption at Sun Microsystems.[2] After he left Sun he became one of the founders of DMOZ.[6] He stayed on board after the Netscape acquisition, and continued to work on the directory as well as Netscape Search, AOL Music, and AOL Shopping.[citation needed]

After his stint at AOL, Skrenta went on to cofound Topix LLC, a Web 2.0 company in the news aggregation and forums market.[7][8]

In 2005, Skrenta and his fellow cofounders sold a 75% share of Topix to a newspaper consortium made up of Tribune, Gannett, and Knight Ridder.[9]

In the late 2000s, Skrenta headed the startup company Blekko Inc, which was an Internet search engine.[9][10] Blekko received early investment support from Marc Andreessen[11] and began public beta testing on November 1, 2010.[12]

In 2015, IBM acquired both the Blekko company and search engine for their Watson computer system.[13][non-primary source needed]

Skrenta was involved[when?][how?] in the development of VMS Monster, an old MUD for VMS. VMS Monster was part of the inspiration for TinyMUD. He is also known for his role in developing TASS, an ancestor of tin,[14][non-primary source needed] the threaded Usenet newsreader for Unix systems.[citation needed]

After working at IBM, Skrenta joined Meta.[15][non-primary source needed]

As of 2025, he oversees the Common Crawl organization.[16]

References

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  1. ↑ "Prank starts 25 years of computer security woes". CTV. Associated Press. 2007-08-31. Archived from the original on 2008-01-07.
  2. 1 2 3 Leyden, John (2012-12-14). "The 30-year-old prank that became the first computer virus". theregister. Retrieved 2026-05-10.
  3. ↑ Zetter, Kim (November 10, 2009). "Nov. 10, 1983: Computer 'Virus' Is Born". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Retrieved 2026-05-10.
  4. ↑ "Northwestern University, 131st Annual Commencement, June 17, 1989". 1989.
  5. ↑ Olympia homepage
  6. ↑ Gilliam, Jim (2015-07-22). "How Lycos Almost Won the Search Engine Wars". Gizmodo. Retrieved 2026-05-10.
  7. ↑ USA Today (2007-04-01). "Interview with Topix founder Rich Skrenta". Retrieved 2010-05-22.
  8. ↑ "Malware: A Brief Timeline". PCMag UK. 2011-03-10. Retrieved 2026-05-10.
  9. 1 2 Start-Up Blekko Tries to Take On Google The Wall Street Journal, October 31, 2010
  10. ↑ Arrington, Michael (2008-01-03). "The Next Google Search Challenger: Blekko". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2026-05-10.
  11. ↑ Arrington, Michael (2008-05-14). "Stealth Search Engine Blekko Gets Money From Marc Andreessen, SoftTech". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2026-05-10.
  12. ↑ Wollman, Dana (2010-11-02). "Blekko launches human-driven search engine". News & Record. Associated Press. Retrieved 2010-11-03.
  13. ↑ "Data, Data, Everywhere Data. Now a Better Way to Understand It". IBM. March 27, 2015. Retrieved 2016-02-04.
  14. ↑ Tass threaded newsreader Rich Skrenta's Official Tass Page
  15. ↑ "Common Crawl - Team - Rich Skrenta". commoncrawl.org. Retrieved 2025-11-07.
  16. ↑ Reisner, Alex (2025-11-04). "The Company Quietly Funneling Paywalled Articles to AI Developers". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2025-11-14.
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