Jann Wenner

Jann Simon Wenner (/ˈjɑːn ˈwɛnər/ YAHN WEN-er; born January 7, 1946) is an American businessman who co-founded the popular culture magazine Rolling Stone with Ralph J. Gleason and is the former owner of Men's Journal magazine. He participated in the Free Speech Movement while attending the University of California, Berkeley. Wenner co-founded Rolling Stone in 1967.

Later in his career, Wenner co-founded the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and founded other publications. As a publisher and media figure, he has faced controversy regarding favoritism in Hall of Fame eligibility decisions, the breakdown of his relationship with gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson, and criticism that his magazine's reviews were biased.

Wenner was raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, the son of Sim and Edward Wenner. He grew up in a secular Jewish family.

His parents divorced in 1958, and he and his sisters, Kate and Merlyn, were sent to boarding schools. He completed his secondary education at the Chadwick School in 1963, and went on to attend the University of California, Berkeley. Before dropping out of Berkeley in 1966, Wenner was active in the Free Speech Movement and produced the column "Something's Happening" in the student-run newspaper, The Daily Californian. Wenner avoided the military draft by providing a letter to the draft board from a Berkeley doctor that diagnosed him with "serious personality disorder…with its concomitant history of psychiatric treatment, suicide ideation, homosexual and excessive heterosexual promiscuity, and heavy use of illegal drugs".: 68

With the help of his mentor, San Francisco Chronicle jazz critic Ralph J. Gleason, Wenner landed a job at Ramparts, a high-circulation muckraker, where Gleason was a contributing editor and Wenner worked on the magazine's spinoff newspaper.

Biography summary from English Wikipedia, photograph via Wikimedia Commons.