The Marque The Marque

Andrew Paradise

Founder & CEO

Skillz

Las Vegas, NV, USA


Andrew Paradise
Amit Paley
International Rescue Committee
Tim Parker
National Trust

Andrew Paradise’s Biography

Andrew Paradise is the Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Skillz, a pioneer of mobile skill-based competition that connects players and developers through social competition. Andrew is a highly regarded leader, entrepreneur and inventor in the gaming and tech industries, having founded and sold numerous companies throughout his career.

Skillz’s platform gives game developers the opportunity to monetize their content by building franchises and enabling player competition in their games. It hosts billions of casual mobile gaming tournaments for millions of mobile players around the world and distributes millions of dollars in real-world prizes each month.

As CEO, Andrew has led the company through periods of significant growth, culminating in it becoming the global leader in mobile gaming industry. Under his leadership, Skillz has been recognized with many honors, including Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies, CNBC’s Disruptor 50, Forbes’ Next Billion-Dollar Startups and the #1 fastest-growing company in America on the Inc. 5000.

Andrew has been widely recognized for his...
Andrew Paradise is the Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Skillz, a pioneer of mobile skill-based competition that connects players and developers through social competition. Andrew is a highly regarded leader, entrepreneur and inventor in the gaming and tech industries, having founded and sold numerous companies throughout his career.

Skillz’s platform gives game developers the opportunity to monetize their content by building franchises and enabling player competition in their games. It hosts billions of casual mobile gaming tournaments for millions of mobile players around the world and distributes millions of dollars in real-world prizes each month.

As CEO, Andrew has led the company through periods of significant growth, culminating in it becoming the global leader in mobile gaming industry. Under his leadership, Skillz has been recognized with many honors, including Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies, CNBC’s Disruptor 50, Forbes’ Next Billion-Dollar Startups and the #1 fastest-growing company in America on the Inc. 5000.

Andrew has been widely recognized for his success and has earned his reputation as a thought leader in the gaming and tech space. He was listed in the ‘40 under 40 Class of 2018’ by the San Francisco Business Times, and has been a featured speaker on gaming and tech at the Milken Institute’s annual conference, MWCA, Inc. Conference, SXSW and more. Andrew has also been featured in articles and interviews by The Wall Street Journal, Entrepreneur, Forbes, CNBC, Bloomberg and more. He has also registered several patents.

Andrew holds a B.A. in English Literature from the University of Massachusetts and a BCom from the University of Auckland.
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Andrew Paradise’s Newsfeed

Business Wire
Skillz Spotlights Innovation, Monetization and Growth at the 36th Annual Game Developers Conference

Uniting for the first time at the 36th Annual Game Developers Conference (GDC), Skillz, the leading mobile games platform, hosted Aarki, its growing demand side platform (DSP), alongside Skillz’ strategic Photon Engine partner.

Andrew Paradise’s Background

Skillz
Founder & CEO
2012 - Present
Las Vegas, NV, USA
Skillz is the leading mobile games platform that connects players and developers through fun and fair competition. Its platform empowers game developers to monetize their content by building multi-million-dollar franchises and enabling social competition in their games.
 
Intuit
Director of Payment Solutions
Mountain View, CA, USA
Intuit is a global technology platform that helps consumers and small businesses overcome their most important financial challenges. Andrew served as Director following the acquisition of AisleBuyer.
 
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Andrew Paradise’s Gallery

Media

Skillz Reports Higher Revenues, Losses During ‘Huge Building Year’
Feb 2022
New York, NY, USA
“Last year, we made substantial investments in our infrastructure necessary to build the competition layer of the Internet,” Skillz CEO Andrew Paradise said in a release. “We are now entering a new phase, where we will shift focus to profitable growth through improving marketing efficiency, and deploying fewer but more impactful product features.”
 
Skillz starts trading as a public company as mobile esports heats up
Dec 2020
San Francisco, CA, USA
Mobile esports company Skillz has begun trading on the New York Stock Exchange, becoming the latest company to take advantage of a boom in the game industry.
 
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Interviews

Skillz CEO Andrew Paradise on ‘Big Buck Hunter’ launch and future growth
Sep 2021
New York, NY, USA
Skillz CEO joins ‘Closing Bell’ to discuss the company’s upcoming launch for its ‘Big Buck Hunter’ game and where the biggest growth opportunities are for the company.
 
Skillz CEO Andrew Paradise on Aarki acquisition and the company’s outlook
Jun 2021
New York, NY, USA
Skillz CEO joins ‘Closing Bell’ to discuss the decision to acquire Aarki, what the business is investing in and the future of the company.
 
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Features

How Skillz CEO Andrew Paradise Built an Inc. 5000 Leader
Aug 2017
New York, NY, USA
This feature highlights Skillz' placement in the No. 1 spot on the Inc. 5000 list, the first gaming entity ever to top the chart. In a discussion with founder, Andrew Paradise, the article traces the company's story, from its founding in 2012 to its current success hosting tens of millions of customers monthly on its platform.
 

Publications

3 Business Lessons I Learned From Playing Video Games
Author
Aug 2023
Andrew explains how the virtual world of gaming has motivated him - also leading to improved processes and better engagement with teammates.
 
Fueling Epic Wins: Skillz Puts Developers First with Innovative Revenue Model
Author
May 2023
In this article for LinkedIn, Andrew explains why Skillz utilizes an innovative revenue model to reward game developers fairly, describing them as the lifeblood of their business as the creators of the games that players love.
 
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Awards & Recognition

CNBC Disruptor 50 list
Honoree
2019
New York, NY, USA
Skillz was honored with a place on the list for the second year in a row. The CNBC Disruptor 50 list features private companies — from biotech and machine learning to transportation, retail and agriculture — whose innovations are changing the world.
 
40 Under 40 | Class of 2018
Honoree
2018
San Francisco, CA, USA
The San Francisco Business Times’ 40 Under 40 highlights some of the young business leaders making their mark on the Bay Area and the world. The leaders and entrepreneurs that make up the list come from a variety of fields, including technology, real estate, finance, healthcare, law, philanthropy, food and more.
 

Speaking Engagements

Milken Institute Global Conference
Panel member
2021
Beverly Hills, CA, USA
Andrew, along with other leaders in the tech space, took part in a panel titled 'Leading Companies Through the New Digital Reality'. Panel members discussed the new reality companies are facing around the globe, including what the workspace of the future will look like and what the shift to e-commerce could mean for the small and medium businesses that drive the economy.
 
South by Southwest
Panel member
Apr 2021
Andrew and other leaders in the tech and gaming industries participated in a panel titled 'Gaming for Good: The Future of Fundraising'. The panel discussed opportunities for organizations to rally the gaming community and drive meaningful change, while also sharing an inside look at the success of companies across esports, technology and nonprofits.
 
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Business Interests

Cooperative Gameplay in Peer-to-peer Wagering Platform
Patent | US-9697680
With this peer-to-peer program, data can be received and can include a request to initiate a cooperative digital skills-based gaming competition and an identification of one or more additional players to invite to join a cooperative team.
 
Online Software Video Capture and Replay System
Patent | US-9630097
The user-activity video signal can comprise a video capture characterizing a user's interaction with a software application on a client. The software application can have an interface display space on the client and the software application can execute on the client in operation with at least one remote backend computing system.
 
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Press Releases

Skillz to Participate in Wedbush Winter Games Conference
Dec 2021
New York, NY, USA
Skillz announced that its CEO and founder, Andrew Paradise, will participate in a fireside chat at the Wedbush Winter Games Conference being held December 8-9, 2021.
 
7th Annual Digital Entertainment World Features Speakers from Pluto TV, Roc Nation, CBS, NBC, Epic Games and more
Jan 2020
New York, NY, USA
Andrew Paradise is listed as a featured speaker at the 7th annual Digital Entertainment World (DEW), which will assemble industry leaders who play a significant role in the business of creating and monetizing digital entertainment content.
 
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Andrew Paradise’s Education

The University of Auckland
BCom | Economics
University of Massachusetts, Amherst
B.A. | English Literature