Joe Fernandez (businessman)

Joe Fernandez is a Cuban American businessman most well known for his work on the social media company Klout. He attended, but did not graduate from, the University of Miami. He moved to New York City where he met his wife. He had several jobs at several companies, including Adjoined Technologies, Onboard Information, and Evalulogix, the latter which he co-founded. Fernandez underwent jaw surgery at the age of 30, which contributed to his idea for Klout due to his inability to speak. He started Klout in New York City, and the website launched on December 24, 2008. On March 27, 2014, it was announced that Lithium Technologies had purchased the website from Fernandez. Fernandez revealed on April 17, 2015 that he was stepping down from his position as CEO of Klout, which would then be manned by Lithium. He later joined Lithium as one of its board of directors. As a result of some of the changes made by Fernandez and his staff to the way Klout scores work, Fernandez came under criticism. Particularly, people were upset that their scores lowered after the way scores are determined changed. This led to Fernandez's cell phone number being leaked and him receiving death threats.