About
ThisWeekIn, Inc. is a web television network covering a wide variety of topics from tech to entertainment. Produced out of our Santa Monica studio, our web shows feature guest experts, founders, movie stars, comedians, technologists and CEO’s — all keeping you up to speed on what’s happening this week with a fast and funny style. Informative and entertaining, ThisWeekIn is the place for whatever your interests may be.
The company was founded in 2010 by Jason Calacanis, Kevin Pollak and Mark Jeffrey and is based in Santa Monica, CA.
If you are interested in sponsoring a show on the ThisWeekIn network, email sponsor@thisweekin.com.
Jason Calacanis
CEO/CoFounder, ThisWeekIn
Jason McCabe Calacanis hosts ‘This Week In Startups’ on the ThisWeekIn network and is the founder and CEO of Mahalo.com, a human-powered search engine focused on the top English-language search terms, including verticals such as travel, products, news, entertainment, sports, food, and health.
Prior to Mahalo.com’s launch in alpha in May, 2007, he was an “Entrepreneur in Action” at Sequoia Capital, Silicon Valley’s leading venture capital firm, a position he held since December 2006.
Calacanis co-founded and was the CEO of Weblogs, Inc., a network of popular weblogs that was sold to AOL in November 2005. Upon joining AOL, he was appointed senior vice president. In addition, he was named general manager of AOL’s Netscape and was responsible for the July 2006 relaunch of the iconic browser as a social bookmarking news site.
Prior to forming Weblogs Inc., Calacanis was the founder of Rising Tide Studios, a media company that published the magazines Silicon Alley Reporter and Digital Coast Reporter. The flagship publication later became Venture Reporter, a venture capital database, and was sold to Dow Jones.
Calacanis is from Brooklyn, NY and currently resides in Los Angeles and New York with his wife and bulldog. He received a B.A. in psychology from Fordham University. Calacanis is known for his transparency and insights into the internet and media industries.
Kevin Pollak
CoFounder, ThisWeekIn
Kevin Pollak hosts ‘Kevin Pollak’s Chat Show’ on the ThisWeekIn network and has captured the attention of audiences worldwide with his range of both dramatic and comedic roles. Over the past two decades, he has appeared in over fifty films, as well as countless television projects, and has established himself as one of the few stand-up comedians to have a successful dramatic film career. In addition to his acting talents, he has also proven himself as both a writer and producer.
Pollak first started performing stand-up comedy at the age of ten. He became a touring professional stand-up at age twenty and then in 1988 landed a role in George Lucas’ “Willow” , directed by Ron Howard. In 1990, he appeared in Barry Levinson’s “Avalon”, for which he received an overwhelming response from the film community. It was Pollak’s role in the 1992 film “A Few Good Men”, directed by Rob Reiner, starring Tom Cruise, Jack Nicholson and Demi Moore, that proved his ability to share the big screen with dramatic heavyweights. He then went on to co-star in the box-office success “Grumpy Old Men” and its’ sequel, “Grumpier Old Men”. In 1994, Kevin was offered a plum role opposite Gabriel Byrne, Kevin Spacey, Benicio Del Toro, Chazz Palminteri and Stephen Baldwin in a little indie film called “The Usual Suspects.” Although the director, Bryan Singer, and the writer, Christopher McQuarrie, were complete unknowns at the time, the script was simply the best he had ever read, so he took the leap. The film debuted at the Cannes Film Festival to a frenzied response, and then went on to win two Academy Awards and a special award from The National Board of Review for “Best Ensemble Cast.” The film’s popularity has never diminished thanks to a seemingly never-ending need for its DVD. Later that same year, the call came from Martin Scorsese for Kevin to join Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci and Sharon Stone in his Vegas epic, “Casino.” It was a dream-like opportunity to work with the master, and the film would also garner several Academy Award nominations, and would soon after become known as one Scorsese’s classics.
In 1999, he appeared opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger and Gabriel Byrne in Universal Picture’s “End of Days”. He followed that with a starring role in Paramount Classics’ political thriller “Deterrence”, written and directed by Rod Lurie, for which Kevin received overwhelming critical praise.
In 2002, he reteamed with Eddie Murphy in “Dr. Doolittle 2″. Also that year, Pollak starred in “Stolen Summer” with Aidan Quinn and Bonnie Hunt, which was written and directed by Pete Jones, the winner of Ben Affleck and Matt Damon’s first Project Greenlight series for HBO. Finishing up the year, Kevin appeared in “The Santa Clause 2″ with Tim Allen.
In 2003 and 2004, Pollak starred in the indy film “Seven Times Lucky” for writer/director Gary Yates. The film debuted at The Sundance Film Festival and received extraordinary reviews. In 2005 Pollak teamed up with Gary Yates again on the film “Hotel Niagra,” which was released in 2006.
Check Kevin’s Filmography for a complete listing of all his film work.
Pollak has also starred in several television projects including “The Underworld”, a crime telepic for Warner Bros. and NBC, which he co-created and co-executive produced with Chris McQuarrie (Academy Award winning screenwriter of The Usual Suspects) and Lucy Webb. He also starred in the CBS sitcom “Work With Me”, which he co-executive produced. When Tom Hanks called a few years back, Kevin starred in an episode of the multi-award winning series, “From the Earth to the Moon”. Before that, however, there was a call from Drew Carey for Kevin to voice his boss on a pilot for a show to be called, “The Drew Carey Show”. “Mr. Bell’s” often abusive relationship with Drew ran the entire first season. Pollak also hosted the first season of Bravo’s “Celebrity Poker Showdown”. Pollak has also starred in two of his own HBO stand-up comedy specials, the latest being “Kevin Pollak, Stop With The Kicking”, directed by David Steinberg.
Kevin was recently named by Comedy Central as one of the Top 100 Comedians of all Time.
Mark Jeffrey
CoFounder, ThisWeekIn
Mark Jeffrey is a serial Internet entrepreneur, podcast pioneer and author. He co-hosts This Week in Cloud Computing and This Week In Android, and hosts This Week In Books (formerly Bibliotech).
Previously, Mark was CTO of Mahalo.com, Inc., a human-powered search engine focused on the top English-language search terms, including verticals such as travel, products, news, entertainment, sports, food, and health.
Prior to that, Mark co-founded business social networking company ZeroDegrees, Inc. and sold it to IAC/InteractiveCorp in 2004. He also was CEO and co-founder of SuperSig, Inc., an html email company.
His first company, The Palace, Inc., backed by Time Warner, Intel and Softbank, was a wildly popular virtual world that grew to 10 million users at its peak. It was was selected ‘The Best of 1996′ by Entertainment Weekly received numerous awards and coverage including a Webby Award nomination. Mark sold the company to Communities.com in 1998.
Mark has been named on of ‘50 to Watch’ by Variety Magazine presented as a featured speaker at the very first Harvard University Conference on the Internet and Society in 1996. Mark holds a B.S. in Computer Science from the University of New Hampshire.
His podcast novel “Max Quick 1: The Pocket and the Pendant” was released in 2005 and has received over 2.4 million downloads to date. Harper Collins bought the book in 2009 and will publish it in hardcover in 2011.
Mark Suster hosts This Week In Venture Capital
Mark joined GRP Partners in 2007 after having worked with GRP for nearly 8 years as a two-time entrepreneur. Most recently Mark was Vice President, Product Management at Salesforce.com (NASDAQ: CRM) following its acquisition of Koral,where Mark was Founder and CEO. Prior to Koral, Mark was Founder and CEO of BuildOnline, the largest independent global content collaboration company focused on the engineering and construction sectors, which was acquired by SWORD Group (PARIS: SWP). Earlier in his career, Mark spent nearly ten years working for Accenture in Europe, Japan and the U.S.
Mark received a BA in Economics from the University of California, San Diego, and an MBA from the University of Chicago. He is a dual citizen of the US and the UK.
Mark founded Launchpad LA, a program designed to help mentor LA’s most promising first-time startup CEO’s. He runs the Southern California Venture Capital Alliance (VCA) and is on the board of advisors for the venture capital fund of the UCSD Rady School of Business.
Mark sits on the Boards of RingRevenue, GumGum and Ad.ly. He was formerly on the boards of EMN8, Qualys, Koral and BuildOnline.
Ed Crasnick hosts Humor Me with Ed Crasnick
Ed is an Emmy winning writer and creator/performer. His background is comedy. He is no stranger to talking about himself in the third person. He has written and performed in all media for over fifteen years.
On Television Ed has worked on “The Sopranos,” “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” “Just Shoot Me,” “Late Night with Conan O’Brien,” “Ellen,” “Whose Line Is It Anyway?,” “Dr. Katz” and many others. In addition to hosting This Week in Comedy, Ed has been doing “The Self Help Comedy Hour.” It is the first self-help comedy show; uniting comedy, entertainers and self help experts. Ed has also been a development exec who created Instant Comedy. This was a production think-tank where a talented ensemble created a new comedy every week. Currently, Ed has a number of shows in development with producer Michael Gruskoff.
Ed is no stranger to the web, although he has no idea how to behave in a chat room, just like life. On the web, along with Stun Creative; Ed created, wrote, cast, produced and acted in “The Writers Room”, a series sold to Sony digital. On radio; he hosted his own show on KABC and is a frequent guest on WBZ in Boston and The Steve Parry Show in London.
As a comedian; Ed has performed from coast to coast at such venues as Caesars Palace and The Fillmore. He toured for four years including off-Broadway in his one-man show “I’m Not Perfect”. The show received critical acclaim around the country and saved Ed thousands of dollars in therapy costs. He is writing a self help comedy workbook called “I’m Not Getting Better and You’re Getting Rich.” Mr. Crasnick lives with his wife Caryl and daughter Shayna near the sea, where he drinks coffee and worries.
Jaime Fox appears on Kevin Pollak’s Chat Show and hosts This Week in Mad Men
After a four-year stint as class clown of Ambridge Area High School, Jaime decided to waste time and money graduating from Point Park University. Once she realized she gained more knowledge from classic Warner Bros. cartoons, The Simpsons, and Epcot Center, she moved to Los Angeles to write comedy. While attending classes at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater, she was brought on as head writer of Kevin Pollak’s Chat Show, making her part of the This Week In family. When Jaime got wind of This Week in Mad Men, she attached herself to the project faster than Peggy to the Belle Jolie account. When not working on either KPCS or TWiMM, she enjoys breaking NES records, drinking clear liquors, listening to 80s new wave, and the occasional puff of her corn cob pipe.
Jessica Villarreal hosts This Week in Video Games
Jessica Villarreal is originally from Austin, Texas and is a video gamer, game journalist and promotional spokesperson. Her gaming career started in 2006 when she joined Scot Rubin, G4TV co-founder, and Lawrence Young to become the news segment producer for All Games Radio. All Games Radio is the world’s first and only live daily Internet radio network to focus on the video game industry.
In 2008, Jessica joined GameGirl.com, a division of GamePro Magazine, as an editorial writer, and was invited to speak on the “Girl Gaming Goes Mainstream” panel during SXSW in 2009. In 2010, she became the Event Correspondent and Senior Review Editor for the theStream.tv’s, “The Game Show” on Revision3.com. Jessica recently was asked to guest host G4TV’s “The Feed” on Attack of the Show and has done on-camera reporting for numerous launch events, Anime Expo, E3, E for All and the Consumer Electronic Show.
Jessica’s enthusiasm for games goes beyond her work with the media. For the past four years she has worked with gaming promotions as a brand ambassador, Nintendo “Guru”, host and emcee. Clients she has represented include Nintendo Wii, DS Lite/DSi, Samsung, Hewlett Packard, Gears of War 3 and Capcom. (She is also the best damn Chun Li cosplayer you will ever meet)
Jessica had a love for gaming early on when she received a Sega Master System and Nintendo Entertainment System from her parents at a young age. She is currently playing games on next generation platforms like the Xbox 360, PS3 and Nintendo Wii. Her favorite types of games to play are the ones where you kill people who are already dead, those bloody kinds with flying body limbs and cussing, ones with girls who have ginormous boobies….and Nintendogs.
