Josh Miller: From Branch to Facebook to Betaworks

Josh Miller dropped out of Princeton University at the beginning of his senior year to start up his own company called Branch along with two other people in 2011. Miller was a sociology major and had no tech background, but his interest in people and their stories helped him come up with the concept for the company. Branch is a website that facilitates discussions about any given topic. Users can create their own discussion room or “branch” and invite friends, colleagues, or experts on the topic to join the discussion. The discussion can then be shared or published anywhere on the web. The Branch team is also responsible for the iOS mobile application Potluck. The app allows users to discover content online, share them with friends and discuss the content with them.

Miller is also known to be quite opinionated. He often expresses his personal and professional opinions on his blog – and he doesn’t mince words. This has caught the attention of many, especially since he had some sharply written unsolicited advice directed at Facebook, but what had people in the tech world talking was Facebook’s acquisition of Branch, along with the company’s mobile product Potluck. Although Branch remains to be a separate entity under the umbrella of Facebook, Miller now does product development for the Mark Zuckerberg-run company.

Aside from developing new products for Facebook, Miller is also a Venture Partner at Betaworks, a technology studio based in New York. At Betaworks, Miller works with companies in the seed stage giving them the same guidance his mentors Scott Heifermann from Meetups and Jonah Peretti from BuzzFeed gave him when he was just starting out. Miller accepted the position offered to him by Betaworks CEO John Borthwick as way of giving back to the New York tech community that supported him from the beginning.