John Danner

John is a serial entrepreneur and angel investor in technology and education.  He is the co-founder and CEO of Flourish Schools, an AI-powered network of private middle schools started May 2025 in Nashville.  He is co-founder and Chairman of Project Read, an AI tutor teaching over 100,000 students to read in elementary schools and of SparkSpace, an AI writing tutor.  Previously John was co-Founder and CEO of Rocketship Education, an elementary school network which originated the concept of blended schools, combining online and classroom learning. John was a fifth and second grade public school teacher before starting Rocketship. John’s first startup was NetGravity, the first Internet adserver company, where he was co-Founder and CEO. John took NetGravity public in 1998 and sold the company in 1999. John has a B.S. and M.S. Electrical Engineering from Stanford University and a M.Ed. in Education Policy from Vanderbilt University. He is a Stanford DCI Fellow,  Aspen Institute Crown Fellow, Ashoka Fellow, and was the 2010 winner of the McNulty Prize for Social Entrepreneurship from the Aspen Institute.  John is the co-instructor of Lean Launchpad for Education at Stanford, a class focused on student teams launching new education companies.