Michael Bruno (entrepreneur)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Michael Bruno was the fourth of six children. He was born and raised in Larchmont, New York.[6] He is a former competitive swimmer and Junior Olympics winner.[1]
Bruno studied business at San Diego State University and later moved to San Francisco, California, where he worked as a real estate broker.[7]
Career
During the dot-com boom of the 1990s, Bruno worked as a real estate agent for Sotheby's real-estate division in San Francisco.[8][9] Bruno says he was inspired to get his real estate license at age 19 after reading Napoleon Hill's 1937 self-improvement book Think and Grow Rich.[10]
In 2001, after moving to Paris, France, Bruno created 1stdibs.com, an online luxury marketplace for antiques, jewellery, and fine art.[11] He said the idea for the company came to him while visiting the Clignancourt flea market in Paris.[12]
In 2011, Bruno accepted a $60 million investment from venture capital firm, Benchmark, and stepped down from his role as CEO of 1stdibs but stayed on as chief creative officer.[13]
In 2012, Bruno bought a 12,000-square-foot mansion in Tuxedo Park, New York. The mansion was designed in the early 1900s by John Russell Pope. Bruno also owns a historic park adjacent to the Tuxedo Park property. The 55-acre park was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, the landscape architect who designed Central Park in New York City.[14] The Tuxedo Park home was featured in a July 2015 photo tour in design magazine Elle Décor.[10]
In 2015, Bruno launched an interior design app called HousePad, a digital household management tool that allows homeowners to communicate with family, guests, interior designers, and staff.[15]
In 2016, Bruno launched Design Carta, a private marketplace for art and design professionals.[16] He also founded Tuxedo Hudson Realty, a commercial and residential real estate company,[4] and Blue Barn, an organic farmstand, that same year.[17][18]