In 1999, Dash launched his personal weblog, dashes.com (now anildash.com), while working as an independent technology consultant. From 2001 to 2003, he worked as a
new media developer for the Village Voice before becoming the first employee of
Six Apart, the makers of
Movable Type,
TypePad, and
Vox, where he served as a vice president until 2009.[5][6]
He was also previously a partner with Michael J. Wolf in Activate Consulting, a media and technology
management consulting firm,[10][11] and a co-founder (with
Gina Trapani) and CEO of ThinkUp, a social media aggregation and analysis tool.[12] The company was shuttered in June 2016.[13] Dash was appointed CEO of Fog Creek Software in December 2016.[14] On September 25, 2018, the company was renamed Glitch after its flagship product.[15] In March 2020, Glitch and its union signed a collective bargaining agreement, the first in the tech industry.[16]
Dash was host of Function with Anil Dash, a podcast about technology's effects on culture, co-produced by Glitch and
Vox Media[17] The podcast ran for two seasons from 2018 to 2020.
In 2014, as part of a collaboration with
Kevin McCoy, Dash co-created Monegraph, a
blockchain-based system for verifying original digital artworks initially called monetized graphics,[18] which has since been called the first implementation of
non-fungible tokens (NFTs).[19][18][20]
Dash has been critical of present day usage of the NFT concept, stating "The only thing we’d wanted to do was ensure that artists could make some money and have control over their work," and that co-creator "McCoy still believes that blockchain technologies can help artists sustain their work."[18]
Recognition
In 2004, he won an
SEO contest which required contestants to get the top
Google ranking for the made-up phrase "nigritude ultramarine".[21]
In 2010, Dash's weblog was an honoree in the Personal Blog/Website category of the 2010
Webby Awards.[22] In 2022 Dash and McCoy won the Webby lifetime achievement award for the development of NFTs.[23][24]
^Anil Dash (19 October 2018).
"Introducing Function with Anil Dash". Function with Anil Dash (Podcast). Vox Media Podcast Network. Retrieved 7 March 2022.