James Hong (entrepreneur)

Hong grew up in Danville, California; his parents emigrated from Taiwan. He studied electrical engineering and computer science at the University of California, Berkeley, where he met future co-founder Jim Young. After graduating, he worked at Hewlett-Packard in sales engineering and product marketing before leaving in 1997 to pursue an MBA at Berkeley. == Career ==

Hot or Not Hong co-founded Hot or Not with Jim Young, his former Berkeley roommate, in October 2000. The concept originated from a disagreement about whether a woman Young had seen at a party was a "perfect ten." The site achieved rapid viral growth, reaching nearly two million page views per day within its first week. By July 2006, Hot or Not had tabulated approximately 13 billion votes. The site generated revenue through advertising and a subscription-based matchmaking feature called "Meet Me," which charged users $6 per month. Influence Hot or Not is recognized as an influential precursor to later social media platforms. Time reported that YouTube's founders initially conceived their site as "a video version of HOTorNOT.com." Other startups In 2014, he launched Cakey, a child-safe YouTube viewing application he built for his own children after teaching himself iPhone development. Publications Co-author: • == Philanthropy ==

In October 2005, Hong created 10 Over 100, a website encouraging people to pledge 10 percent of their income above $100,000 to charity. He developed the project with Josh Blumenstock, a web engineer at Hot or Not, citing a lack of clear norms for charitable giving among newly wealthy technology workers. By January 2006, more than 648 people from 36 countries had signed up. == See also ==