Media executive.
Entrepreneur.
Investor.

Andrew Perlman is a media executive, entrepreneur, and investor whose career spans entertainment licensing, intellectual property, public markets, digital media, and the creator economy. Each chapter has been defined by the same instinct: identify where technology is reshaping an industry, then build the infrastructure to capture that shift.

01 Classic Media & Digital Licensing

Andrew began his career at Classic Media (now DreamWorks Classics), where he served as Head of Digital and built the company's digital licensing group from scratch. Classic Media controlled some of the most recognizable character brands in entertainment — Casper the Friendly Ghost, Lassie, The Lone Ranger, Rocky & Bullwinkle, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman, VeggieTales, Where's Waldo, and George of the Jungle, among others.

Andrew's work pioneering digital licensing for these iconic properties came at a critical inflection point — when entertainment companies were first grappling with how to monetize legacy IP in digital channels. The experience gave him a foundational understanding of brand value, content licensing, and the intersection of entertainment and technology. Classic Media was later acquired by DreamWorks Animation for $155 million.

02 Vringo & IP Innovation

Andrew served as President and then CEO of Vringo, a publicly traded intellectual property company on the NYSE. Under his leadership, Vringo prosecuted one of the most closely watched patent cases of its era — a jury trial against Google over search advertising technology that resulted in a verdict finding Google had infringed Vringo's patents. The court imposed a running royalty on Google's AdWords system, later enhanced to 6.5% after finding Google's design-around replicated the infringing elements. Analysts estimated the judgment's value at over $1 billion.

Simultaneously, Andrew led Vringo's global enforcement campaign against ZTE Corporation across twelve countries — including the United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, India, and China — over telecommunications infrastructure patents acquired from Nokia. The campaign resulted in courtroom victories, injunctions, and a $21.5 million settlement. The litigation drew international attention for its scale and complexity, including confrontations with Chinese regulators and courtroom sanctions against opposing counsel.

The Vringo chapter gave Andrew a deep understanding of how intellectual property, technology platforms, and global markets intersect — and a firsthand education in building and defending value at the highest stakes.

03 Recurrent Ventures & The Creator Economy

In 2018, Andrew co-founded Recurrent Ventures, a Miami-based digital media company built on a thesis that legacy media brands could be transformed into creator-driven businesses. Over seven years as CEO, he led Recurrent through 14 acquisitions — including The Drive, Donut Media, Popular Science, Outdoor Life, Dwell, and BobVila.com — assembling one of the most diverse portfolios in modern digital publishing.

His strategy treats media M&A not as consolidation, but as creative infrastructure for the creator economy. Rather than acquiring brands to harvest their SEO value or cut costs, Andrew builds each property as a platform for creator-led growth. He acquired The Drive from Time Inc. — one of YouTube's earliest high-production automotive channels — and later brought in Donut Media in 2021, a beloved automotive YouTube channel built around an ensemble “cast” model rather than a single personality.

That insight — that media brands could scale without a single creator at the center — has become a thesis Andrew applies across the portfolio. He transformed Task & Purpose from a web brand into a thriving YouTube channel, grew the Military Influencer Conference into a major experiential asset, and saw Donut Media events draw 800+ cars and 2,000+ attendees.

“YouTube is now overtaking TV. Creator economy is everywhere, not just on your phone.”

04 AI & The Future of Media

At Recurrent, Andrew has been an early mover in applying AI to media operations — using it to catalog thousands of video clips for content remixing, enabling editorial teams to move faster and reach new formats without rebuilding from scratch.

His current conviction: AI isn't replacing media — it's restructuring it. Publishers that understand how to combine AI infrastructure with creator network DNA, without betting on any single personality, will be the durable media businesses of the next decade.

Andrew is now building GridLocal — an AI-operated local media network that reimagines how communities get their news, combining editorial judgment with AI infrastructure at scale. It represents the convergence of everything he's built: the IP rigor of Vringo, the media M&A playbook of Recurrent, and a belief that AI can make quality journalism economically viable at the local level.

Andrew is a member of YPO (Young Presidents' Organization) and founded the YPO 305 Chapter in Miami. He is based in Miami, Florida.