Dan Porter is an Adjunct Associate Professor of Public Service of NYU’s Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. He has spent ten years in educational non-profit followed almost twenty years as a start-up tech entrepreneur and investor where he started and sold two companies. Porter was a high school teacher in Crown Heights, Brooklyn and joined the founding team of Teach For America. He was responsible for its early recruitment and selection efforts, site expansion and eventually served as the President of Teach For America. After Teach For America he worked on early New Visions independent high schools in New York City and then moved from starting up non-profits to technology start ups. Porter became the President of TicketWeb, which sold the first concert tickets on the Internet, and he sold TicketWeb to Ticketmaster for $40 million. Porter was also the CEO of OMGPOP where he created the Draw Something mobile game which has been downloaded 250 million times and he sold the company to Zynga for $180 million.
Porter has also worked with well known entrepreneurs to expand their digital activities. He started and invested in companies for Richard Branson for three years at the Virgin Group and did the same for Ari Emanuel at William Morris Endeavor where he launched channels in fashion and Esports, grew the digital talent business and launched their $50 million venture fund. Porter has lead investments in over 30 leading companies including MasterClass, Classpass and Glossier.
Porter served on the board of Venture For America, which combines entrepreneurship and social good, and consults with numerous companies. He currently is CEO of Overtime, a mobile and video first sports platform. Porter has been featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and numerous tech publications and has mentored startups at TechStars, First Growth, and NYU. He is currently launching a social, technology venture around political engagement. Porter lives in Brooklyn, NY with his wife, two sons, and two dogs. He graduated from Princeton University and has a Master's from NYU.
