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Former eBay CEO Devin Wenig Launches AI Firm to Serve Journalists and Researchers

Ina Steiner
eBay
Former eBay CEO Devin Wenig Launches AI Firm to Serve Journalists and Researchers

Former eBay CEO Devin Wenig has co-founded a company called Symbolic.ai, which is “building a platform and application to bring advanced AI capabilities to Enterprise Publishers and professional writers in news, research and communications.”

Wenig left eBay in September of 2019 and started a charitable trust in 2020 and a VC firm in 2022, according to his LinkedIn profile.

According to the new firm’s website, Symbolic.ai offers “AI that unlocks the potential of professional writers and publishers. Powerful tools for news, research, and corporate communications.”

Jon Stokes, who cofounded tech publication Ars Technica in 1998, signed on as co-founder to Symbolic.ai in August.

In a post on Symbolic.ai’s LinkedIn a month ago, the company wrote in part, “At Symbolic, we power the world’s professional Publishers with cutting-edge AI. We serve the world’s journalists, researchers, and communications professionals, and we believe that the world needs their storytelling and informative content now more than ever. Our mission is not to replace humans with AI and technology, but to give the professional writer superpowers.”

Wenig has also invested in startups – according to Crunchbase, he participated in angel and seed funding rounds this year for Cruz (“builds unapologetically premium products that enhance everyday life”) and Etched.ai (“designing specialized chips for language model inference”).

eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, who retired from active status on the eBay board in 2020, also got into the venture capital and publishing businesses, while former eBay CEO Meg Whitman became CEO of startup streaming platform Quibi in 2018 and became ambassador to Kenya in 2022. Former eBay CEO John Donahoe is CEO of Nike.

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Ina Steiner
Ina Steiner
Ina Steiner is co-founder and Editor of EcommerceBytes and has been reporting on ecommerce since 1999. She's a widely cited authority on marketplace selling and is author of "Turn eBay Data Into Dollars" (McGraw-Hill 2006). Her blog was featured in the book, "Blogging Heroes" (Wiley 2008). She is a member of the Online News Association (Sep 2005 - present) and Investigative Reporters and Editors (Mar 2006 - present). Follow her on Twitter at @ecommercebytes and send news tips to ina@ecommercebytes.com. See disclosure at EcommerceBytes.com/disclosure/.

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Ina Steiner is co-founder and Editor of EcommerceBytes and has been reporting on ecommerce since 1999. She's a widely cited authority on marketplace selling and is author of "Turn eBay Data Into Dollars" (McGraw-Hill 2006). Her blog was featured in the book, "Blogging Heroes" (Wiley 2008). She is a member of the Online News Association (Sep 2005 - present) and Investigative Reporters and Editors (Mar 2006 - present). Follow her on Twitter at @ecommercebytes and send news tips to ina@ecommercebytes.com. See disclosure at EcommerceBytes.com/disclosure/.

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2 thoughts on “Former eBay CEO Devin Wenig Launches AI Firm to Serve Journalists and Researchers”

  1. Could one ask if this is his penance for sending a bunch of goons to a certain ecommerce publisher’s home? Not saying that he did or didn’t, but my personal opinion is that I can’t see him serving anyone outside of himself and his own interests.

    I think that the fact that it happened under his watch could derail business development attempts if a company does their due diligence.

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