John Borthwick
InvestorManaging Partner at Betaworks Β· Investor at Betaworks Ventures Management, Llc
New York, New York
Writes $100K β $500K checks Β· typically $350K
FoundedGiphyStudios at Betaworks
About
John Borthwick is CEO of betaworks, a startup studio, seed fund, and accelerator founded in 2008 that has produced companies including Giphy, bitly, and Tweetdeck alongside investments in Twitter, Tumblr, Kickstarter, and Medium. His investment focus centers on AI application layers and interfaces, with current portfolio companies including Hugging Face, The Browser Company, and Granola. Prior to founding betaworks, Borthwick held roles including SVP of Technology at Time Warner, VP of New Product Development at AOL, and CEO of Fotolog, and serves on the boards of WNYC and Tech Policy Press.
John Borthwick @borthwick
Banning open source model, will "remove capabilities for the defenders" When OpenAI's models breached Huggingface an NVIDIA optimized version of the Chinese Open model GLM-5.2 (nvidia/GLM-5.2-NVFP4) -- "cleaned up the mess" @ClementDelangue https://t.co/IxjWlVUlx6
Aug 1, 2026 Β· β₯ 9 Β· β 3
John Borthwick @borthwick
"Single points of failure are where we have the greatest vulnerability. We cannot have single points of failure as an industry, as a world" Hugging Face incident "is a perfect example of diversity of AI technology being necessary, and a perfect example of why open models and https://t.co/3RCYE1Wt0C
Jul 25, 2026 Β· β₯ 7 Β· β 1
John Borthwick @borthwick
Great to see Google supporting https://t.co/DbhSkmos4I
Jul 25, 2026 Β· β₯ 9
Experience
- betaworksCEOcurrent2008 β presentGreater New York City Area
- Fotolog Inc.CEO2006 β 2007
- Time WarnerSVP Technology and Corp. Alliances2003 β 2006
- AOLVP, New Product Development1998 β 2003
- Digital CityDirector Product Development1997 β 1998
- Total NYCEO / Founder1994 β 1997
- Web PartnersCEO1994 β 1997
- Oliver Wyman and Co.Manager / Associate1987 β 1992
- Mercer Management ConsultingAnalyst - Project mnr1987 β 1991
Education
- The Wharton SchoolMBA1992 β 1994
- Wesleyan UniversityBA1984 β 1987
Same school
Also attended The Wharton School1,366
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+ 1,360 more
Also attended Wesleyan University52
+ 46 more
Shared employers
Also worked at Time Warner26
+ 20 more
Also worked at AOL94
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+ 88 more
Deals Β· 1
Attribution from SEC filings, press coverage, and firm rosters.
Colleagues at Betaworks
Network2
Investors connected to John in public investor directories β a warm-intro map.