Ben Huh: Cheezburger Manufacturer, Distill Keynoter

Once upon a time, a cat was just a simple house pet. People might take pictures of their cats and kittens and keep them to themselves or maybe share them with family members.

At the same time, people would make mistakes. They’d fall off their bicycles while trying to attempt gnarly tricks or get hit in the head with a beach ball when not paying attention… Or maybe just have a poorly juxtaposed license plate number. In other words, they’d fail. These things were seen then forgotten.

That all changed in 2007 when a young former journalist and entrepreneur decided adding captions to pictures of cats, who all seem to have serious speech issues, was the way to go. Ben Huh brought us Cheezburger, a site of pictures and videos depicting cats desiring cheezburgers, serious mistakes in marketing, and other major fails. Since first acquiring I Can Has Cheezburger in 2007, Ben has expanded to over 50 media sites including The Daily What, FAIL Blog, and Know Your Meme.

Ben Huh’s media empire brought the concept of memes and internet humor out of the dark corners of the internet and into the spotlight. Considered an Internet Culture connoisseur, Ben has spoken at various high-profile conferences, such as SXSW, TEDx, and Dublin Web Summit.

And now he’ll be joining us at Distill 2014!

Ben will be keynoting and talking about his story, the story of Cheezburger, and his take on the future of web and mobile technology. We look forward to an entertaining and engaging keynote with the person who brings much joy to our daily lives.

Ben will be on stage, so make sure you are in the audience! Distill will take place on August 7-8, 2014 in San Francisco, CA. Tickets go on sale shortly. [Sign up] (http://distill.engineyard.com/tickets) for a free 2 for 1 discount. It’s free to sign up but applications close on Friday, May 23rd.