Jay Samit

Jay Samit is the former Independent Vice Chairman of Deloitte Digital. An American digital media innovator, he has pioneered advancements in music and video distribution, social media, and ecommerce. He is the author of the bestselling book Disrupt You! Master Personal Transformation, Seize Opportunity, and Thrive in the Era of Endless Innovation and Future Proofing You - Twelve Truths for Creating Opportunity, Maximizing Wealth, and Controlling Your Destiny in an Uncertain World.

Samit received a Presidential fellowship at UCLA, where he graduated magna cum laude in 1982. The same year, Samit founded Jasmine Multimedia Publishing. He created some of the breakthrough laserdisc and CD-ROM titles that defined the emergence of video and music on the personal computer, including the first video on a PC. Jasmine's technological breakthroughs include creating the first interactive videodisc arcade game in 1982 and the first laserdisc-based interactive movie theater for the 1984 Louisiana World Exposition.

Partnering with leading technology firms such as IBM, Microsoft, and Intel, Samit published over 300 titles ranging from Inside the Vatican to Wild West to the award-winning Vid Grid with David Geffen featuring Aerosmith, Ozzy Osbourne, Peter Gabriel, Metallica, Van Halen, Soundgarden, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nirvana, and Guns N' Roses. Samit and his innovations at Jasmine Multimedia received numerous awards, including Best of Show COMDEX, Best of RetailVision, Best of E3, Multimedia Producer Top 100, and Newsweek’s Editor’s Choice Award.

After Jasmine Multimedia Publishing was acquired, Samit was brought on as the first head of business development for Universal Studios in the New Media Group. Later, as VP of Universal Studios' New Media arm, Samit developed several content-driven opportunities for the company to make their new media initiative profitable. In 1998, he created the first million-member social media site for college students called animalhouse.com, which was the first online community to feature free web-based email, VOIP, and e-commerce. 

Animalhouse.com was hailed as “the leading online community for college students” by Variety in 1999. In addition to his books, Samit has written articles and columns about entrepreneurship, technological innovation, and disruption for publications such as the Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Forbes, Ad Age, Harvard Business Review, and Wired. Samit worked with Ralph Nader on the book Selecting a President in 1980. and in college, was presented with the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) Sigma Delta Chi top national award honor for Spot News reporting.

A watercolorist, Samit paints predominantly in a regionalist style with subjects inspired by American street scenes and landscapes. In 2020, Richard Taittinger Gallery presented his inaugural New York solo exhibition, America Disrupted, featuring a series of watercolors painted during the COVID-19 quarantine. A record of the artist’s emotional response to our current era, it is also a time Jay Samit found himself conflicted about his nation’s history. 

Part therapeutic, part social commentary, Samit’s palette reveals the fissures in American society further exposed by this unsettling period. Samit is a member of the Writers Guild of America, the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, and a performing member of the Magic Castle (Academy of Magical Arts). According to Variety, Samit "put himself through college with magic, an art he still practices." He also hosted the popular Wall Street Journal documentary series Startup of the Year.