Nick Hanauer

NICK HANAUER is a Seattle-based serial entrepreneur, venture capitalist, author and activist with a knack for identifying and building transformative business models. In 1995, Hanauer became the first non-family investor in Amazon.com where he served as a Board Advisor until January 2000. During the same time period, he founded and served as CEO of aQuantive, Inc (originally Avenue A Media) and a short time later founded Gear.com. aQuantive was acquired by Microsoft in August 2007 for $6.4 billion, the largest acquisition in Microsoft history, and Gear.com merged with Overstock.com in 2001. He co-founded Second Avenue Partners in 2000, and he currently serves as a board member and advisor to MarketLeader.com and Qliance Medical Group and is vice chairman of Marchex. Hanauer directs a significant portion of his time to social and policy issues. In 2007, he co-authored “The True Patriot” with Eric Liu and co-founded The True Patriot Network, a non-partisan group committed to furthering patriotic ideals. He also co-founded the Washington State League of Education Voters (LEV), a non-partisan statewide political organization focused on promoting public education, where he serves as co-president. A Seattle-area native, Hanauer is an avid adventure traveler, who has visited more than 60 countries, a fly fisherman and an amateur astronomer. He and his wife, Leslie, reside in the Seattle area with their two children.