WeaKnees in the Press
WEAKNEES
EXECUTIVE BIOS
JEFF SHAPIRO, CO-FOUNDER |
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WeaKnees co-founder Jeff Shapiro remembers the first time
he saw fellow co-founder, classmate and best friend Michael Adberg increasing
the storage capacity of his TiVo box.
“I called him crazy because I thought he would electrocute
himself,” Shapiro says.
But when Shapiro saw how easy installing the upgrade was, he had Adberg
upgrade his TiVo too.
Amazed by the simplicity of the upgrades and installation process,
the UC Berkeley alums began to discuss ways of selling their own stand
alone, upgraded TiVo units.
With Adberg’s background in computers, and using Shapiro’s
law degree and business experience, the two began to sell high-capacity
TiVo and self-install hard drive kits, on eBay, in 2001.
“It was very gradual,” Shapiro says of WeaKnees’
beginnings. “We just wanted to sell a few high-capacity TiVos
here and there to fund our sushi habits. We were just working out of
our own garages, but pretty soon, we couldn’t eat that much sushi.”
The WeaKnees TiVo upgrade kits are like auto after-market accessories
but for the DVR, giving audiences as much as 20 times more storage space
to record and store programming.
After a few years of juggling full-time jobs with selling TiVo upgrade
kits, first on eBay then on WeaKnees’ own web site, Adberg and
Shapiro decided there was enough demand to concentrate full-time on
WeaKnees.
Today, the duo operates WeaKnees out of Culver City, California, along
with a staff of 10.
Before starting, and a little bit during, WeaKnees, Shapiro worked
as a corporate lawyer for firms in Washington D.C. and Los Angeles.
He last served as General Counsel for Guidance Solutions, a consulting
and application development firm based in Marina Del Rey.
Despite his law background, Shapiro confesses, “I’ve always
been a computer geek.”
In his role as co-founder, Shapiro naturally handles anything legal
that comes along but insists that both he and Adberg split the duties
pretty much down the middle.
“We are both ‘jacks of all trades’ around here,”
he says. “No way could we have been successful without our level
of trust and ability to work together.”
Adberg says the two agree most of the time, but when they have differences
they work hard to find the right solution.
“We can use each other’s experience to help find a middle-ground,”
Adberg says. “Fortunately, we understand each other and each other’s
limits very well.”
Their hard work has paid off with WeaKnees being featured in such mainstream
press as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Time, WIRED and PC magazines.
Shapiro and Adberg also served as the technical editors for the book, Leo Laporte’s Guide to TiVo and as contributors
to the book TiVo Hacks by Raffi Krikorian.
The future of WeaKnees, Shapiro says, lies in offering new products
and widening the customer base.
“Our first customers were typically the early adopters of new
technology and cutting-edge types of people,” he says. “Now,
we are catering to a more mainstream audience and we want to be able
to continue that as well as adapt to any technology changes that come
our way.”
Shapiro received a Bachelors degree in Economics from the University
of California Berkeley with highest honors. He received his law degree
from the University of Chicago with high honors. Today, he lives with
his wife and two daughters in Los Angeles.
CONTACT:
WeaKnees
310-842-4700
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