![]() ![]() In the first two years of Gilt, did we ever have Armani? Did we ever have, name 20 luxury brands and the answer is “no,” we did not have them. That is absolutely, provably completely untrue. What about the knock that, after the recession and recovery happened, the high end luxury brands didn’t want to discount on Gilt anymore? We tried it in Park & Bond and with food and it didn’t really work. Along the way, we’ve had 15% sell at full price which has worked very well in travel, and we do it in a few other places. Literally the first week, we had a sale of Zac Posen at 50% off. What Gilt does today is exactly what it did day one. I don’t accept the general interpretation there. With flash sales going out of vogue, do you still believe it was a good one? The only person I know who will be here five years from now will be me. But in five years people turn over for whatever reason. The senior team, many, hopefully a lot of them, will be here. ![]() They’re going to distribute their stock and they’ll be done. Five years from now, none of my board members will be on the board, but I will. Let’s say Gilt could go public at some point. I consider myself to be the only real steward of the company. That’s why I don’t consider myself a founder, I am a founder. ![]() In an interview with Fortune (lightly edited for length and clarity), Ryan discussed his entrepreneurial process, his failed startups, the future of his most visible company, Gilt Groupe, his take on NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio and a possible mayoral run of his own, and why he never enters the same industry twice. What’s one more? The first few have worked out pretty well. The next election cycle might be more amenable for Ryan to run, he says, while denying such ambitions.įor now, he’s dedicating around 10% of his time to planning ideas for new companies, possibly in fin-tech or healthcare. That position – a lynchpin between the three areas – is what made him a potential mayoral candidate last time around. He also works on the “general policy and politics of NYC,” liaising between the city government and business and tech communities. Currently Ryan splits his days across eight different responsibilities, including his four companies and the boards of Yale University and Human Rights Watch. Last Fall, he launched his next startup, a mobile wedding registry company called Zola. Likewise, Ex-Gilt employees have created a mafia of their own, founding startups like Vaunte, GroupMe, Moda Operandi, Placemeter, Timehop, and Vine. There is an entire blog dedicated to the doings of DoubleClick alumni. Some companies founded by ex-DoubleClick employees include Narrative Science, RollUp Media, FindtheBest, GroupCommerce, Freewheel, Catchpoint, and Minivid.io. Not only do his companies employ thousands of New Yorkers, but they’ve started an ecosystem of second-generation tech companies. He can take a good deal of credit for the growth of New York’s burgeoning tech scene, which in the last decade has gone from just a few notable companies to surpassing Boston as the country’s second-largest tech center in terms of investment dollars. ![]()
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