Charles Polk

Charles Polk received a Ph.D. in social science (economics) from the California Institute of Technology in 1993. With others from Caltech, he formed Net Exchange in 1994, a firm dedicated to the use of market mechanisms in areas of commerce theretofore not organized using markets. As CEO of Net Exchange from 1995 to 2003, Charles led the development of several groundbreaking markets, including a combinatorial market in pollution credits among major polluters in the Los Angeles basin, which debuted in April 1995 and may have been the first Internet-based exchange. In 2003, Common Knowledge Markets (CKM) was formed as a Net Exchange subsidiary to commercialize the prediction market work that Net Exchange had done for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Currently, Charles serves as President of CKM.