Blake Krikorian

Krikorian was perhaps best known as the CEO of Sling Media, which he founded with his brother Jason. The device maker was acquired by EchoStar in 2007 for close to $400 million, but Krikorian did not stay long in the corporate environment. He became an active angel investor, served on the board of Amazon and also did a stint has head of Microsoft’s interactive entertainment business after it bought another company he founded and led called id8 Group R2 Studios that worked on home automation. His latest focus remained on home automation, which has been a personal interest for some time, including wiring (or, more precisely, wireless-ing) up his own house in a variety of ever more complex digital experiments. Krikorian made deep friendships all over the sector and was a tireless supporter in those relationships. He was one of the people, who helped his former partner Jason Hirschhorn recover after his emergency heart surgery last year. He started his career at General Magic, which created an operating system for mobile devices, and in 1994 he co-founded the Philips Mobile Computing Group where he built and co-led the team created the Velo 1 Windows CE Handheld PC. Krikorian received a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from UCLA. Krikorian is survived by his wife, Cathy, and their two daughters. His brother Adam Krikorian is head coach of the U.S. women’s national water polo team.