What is Ricky Van Veen's Net Worth?
Ricky Van Veen is an American entrepreneur who has a net worth of $25 million. Ricky Van Veen earned his fortune as the co-founder of online comedy company, CollegeHumor. Van Veen co-founded CollegeHumor.com with Josh Abramson in 1999. Over the next several years the site grew to attract millions of monthly visitors who enjoyed CollegeHumor's videos, images, illustrations and articles. CollegeHumor would eventually branch into the TShirt business with their company BustedTees, and a production company that has been involved with TV and film. The website has also produced several television series and hopes to branch out in to movies. In 2006, CollegeHumor was acquired by InterActiveCorp (IAC) for $25 million. Before the acquisition, the company was earning $15 million per year.
Ricky currently serves as Head of Global Creative Strategy at Facebook. Among his other projects, Van Veen was previously the CEO of Notional, a television production company and was a co-founder of a company called Connected Ventures which owned an early equity stake in Vimeo. He is also known for being married to actress Allison Williams from 2015 to 2019.
Early Life and Education
Ricky Van Veen was born on December 14, 1980 in Lutherville-Timonium, Maryland to Helen and Richard Sr. As a young adult, he attended Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, graduating in 2003 with a degree in management and information systems.
CollegeHumor
While he was a student at Wake Forest in late 1999, Van Veen co-founded the website CollegeHumor with his old high school friend Josh Abramson. In the beginning, they used the site to post humorous photos, essays, and videos their friends created. Eventually, CollegeHumor expanded into a major online comedy company with original comedy content posted on YouTube. Among its staple features are CH Originals, which are sketches and short films written and produced by the CollegeHumor staff. Members include Emily Axford, Brian Murphy, and Adam Conover. CH Originals encompass everything from film and television parodies to music videos and animation, with notable series including "Jake and Amir," "Full Benefits," "POV," "Adam Ruins Everything," "Troopers," and "Hot Date." By the end of 2022, the CollegeHumor YouTube channel had amassed more than seven billion views and over 14 million subscribers.
In 2018, CollegeHumor established the subscription-based streaming service Dropout, which became the host for a number of new scripted and unscripted series. Following the company's sale to Sam Reich in 2020, the platform began featuring unscripted series only due to budget constraints. On Dropout, CollegeHumor's series have included the live play tabletop role-playing show "Dimension 20" and the game shows "Game Changer" and "Um, Actually." Among other CollegeHumor projects was "The CollegeHumor Show," a short-lived sitcom that aired on MTV in 2009. Van Veen appeared as a fictionalized version of himself on the show, alongside Sam Reich, Dan Gurewitch, Amir Blumenfeld, Jake Hurwitz, and Sarah Schneider.
Neilson Barnard/Getty Images
Vimeo
In late 2004, the video-sharing website Vimeo was founded by Jake Lodwick and Zach Klein. Originally created as a spinoff of CollegeHumor, the site was mainly used to share humorous videos among colleagues. Both CollegeHumor and Vimeo were acquired by IAC in 2006. Vimeo, which in addition to hosting videos provides subscribers with tools for video creation, editing, broadcasting, and more, has over 260 million users and around 1.6 million subscribers. In the spring of 2021, it became a standalone public company.
Other Ventures
In the summer of 2009, Van Veen was announced as the CEO of a new production company called Notional. Focused on production for linear television, the company is responsible for the reality-based cooking game show "Chopped," which has aired on the Food Network since 2009. Later, in 2015, Van Veen co-founded the product company Scroll Commerce, through which he creates products to sell online, such as the popular Homesick Candle. The company was acquired by BuzzFeed to serve as the foundation of its new Product Labs division.
In 2016, Van Veen was hired by Facebook in the new position of Head of Global Creative Strategy. His activities in that role include working with various media companies and creators to boost audience engagement on the social media platform.
Personal Life
Van Veen married his first wife, actress Allison Williams, in 2015. The pair divorced in 2019. Van Veen went on to wed Caroline Kassie, the business partner of Chelsea Clinton, in the summer of 2021.
