DEMO FALL 2012
Speakers & Sage Panelists
Executive Producer / Moderator
Matt Marshall - Founder and CEO of VentureBeat & Executive Producer of DEMO
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Matt launched VentureBeat in September of 2006, with the realization that no one else was covering the entrepreneurial and tech innovation scene with the velocity or depth that he was. Prior to founding VentureBeat, he covered venture capital for the San Jose Mercury News from 2001 to 2006. In 2002, Matt was awarded "Journalist of the Year" by the Northern California Society of Professional Journalists. Prior to working at the Merc, he was a correspondent for the Wall Street Journal in Bonn, Germany from 1995 to 1998, and a writer for the Washington Post in 1994. Matt holds a PhD in Government and an MA in German and European Studies from Georgetown University. In addition to VentureBeat, Matt is also the Executive Producer of DEMO, the leading launchpad event for emerging technologies. |
Keynote Speakers
George Hu - Chief Operating Officer - Salesforce.com
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George Hu owns all major shared operational functions at salesforce.com, including information technology, employee success, facilities, and security, as well as the platform division, global marketing, strategic alliances, and corporate development. Hu joined salesforce.com in 2002 and has served in a variety of management roles including vice president of product marketing, senior vice president of applications, executive vice president of products, and chief marketing officer. Prior to joining salesforce.com, Hu held product management and strategic consulting roles at North Point Communications and Boston Consulting Group. He received a bachelor's degree in economics from Harvard College and a master's degree in business administration from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Hu was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2010. |
Ray Kurzweil - Author, Entrepreneur, Futurist - Kurzweil Technologies
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Ray Kurzweil is one of the world’s leading inventors and futurists, with a 25-year track record of accurate predictions. Called the “restless genius” by The Wall Street Journal and “the ultimate thinking machine” by Forbes magazine, Kurzweil was selected as one of the top entrepreneurs by Inc. magazine, which described him as the “rightful heir to Thomas Edison.” At the DEMO conference, Kurzweil will reveal concepts and ideas from his next book, How to Create a Mind. In this book, Kurzweil presents a provocative exploration of the most important project in human-machine civilization—reverse engineering the brain to understand precisely how it works and using that knowledge to create even more intelligent machines. |
Evan Williams - Co-Founder - Twitter
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Evan Williams is an American entrepreneur who has co-founded two of the biggest services on the Internet: Blogger (one of the first and largest blogging applications, which he ran for four years before selling to Google in 2003) and Twitter, at which he was the CEO for two years and now serves on the board of directors. Evan was raised on a farm in rural Nebraska and has been recognized as one of Inc. Magazine's Entrepreneurs of the Decade, one of the 100 most influential people in the world, according to TIME, and named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. Evan is currently CEO of The Obvious Corporation, which spun out Twitter, Inc. in 2007. |
Sages & Panelists
Alok Barta - CTO - General Electric
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Mr. Alok Batra is chief technology officer for GE's software and analytics center. Prior to GE, he was Cisco's customer solutions director and chief architect of advanced services. In this role, he introduced several key products - Application Visibility & Management, Adaptive Data Center and Virtual Service eXchange. Mr. Batra has over 20 years of experience in the high-tech industry and brings great depth of knowledge in business operations and state-of-the-art technologies to GE. His unique ability to align business acumen with technology expertise has allowed him to create new products, business models and companies. Prior to his role at Cisco Systems, Mr. Batra was co-founder and CTO of CXO Systems (acquired by Cisco). He is a graduate of the Indian Institute of Technology. |
Scott Case - CEO - Startup America Partnership
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Timothy "Scott" Case is a technologist, entrepreneur and inventor and was founding CTO of Priceline, the "Name Your Own Price" company that was one of only a handful of startups in U.S. history to reach a billion dollars in annual sales in less than 24 months. As Chief Technology Officer, he was responsible for building the technology that enabled Priceline’s hyper-growth. Prior to joining the Startup America Partnership, Scott served as CEO of Malaria No More, where he worked to inspire individuals and institutions in the private sector to end deaths caused by malaria. Previously, Scott helped build a portfolio of intellectual property at the Walker Digital Invention Laboratory, and is a named inventor on dozens of U.S. patents including the underlying portfolio for Priceline. Scott also co-founded Precision Training Software, a software company that developed the world's first PC-based simulated flight instructor and photo-realistic flight simulator. Scott serves as the Chairman of Network for Good, a national nonprofit that has distributed more than $475 million to 60,000 nonprofits and provides online fundraising and communications services to over 5,000 nonprofit organizations. He is also on the Advisory Board of By Kids for Kids, Tickets-for-Charity and ThreeJars. |
Mike Cassidy - Director - Google
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Mike Cassidy is a Director at Google. Prior to joining Google, Mike Cassidy was the Co-Founder and CEO of four start-ups: Ruba, Xfire, Direct Hit, and Stylus Innovation. Ruba helped travelers share their favorite places and was acquired by Google. Xfire helps gamers play online with their friends and was acquired by MTV for $110 million. Direct Hit was a revolutionary search engine whose customers included MSN, Lycos, AOL, etc. and was acquired by Ask.com for $500 million. Stylus Innovation’s flagship product was computer telephony software Visual Voice. Artisoft acquired Stylus for $13M. Mike has a BS/MS in Aerospace Engineering from MIT. He graduated from Harvard Business School. |
Frank Chen - Partner - Andreessen Horowitz
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Frank Chen is a Partner at the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. He runs the research and deal team at the firm, which systematically identifies and evaluates investment opportunities, and builds knowledge about technology, people and trends. Prior to Andreessen Horowitz, Frank was the vice president of Strategy for HP Software, where he helped the company understand and act on changes resulting from the rapid enterprise adoption of virtualization technologies across servers, network and storage. Frank joined HP Software through its acquisition of Opsware, where he was the vice president of Products and User Experience for a broad set of Opsware’s data center automation products. |
Tony Conrad, - Founder/Partner - about.me/True Ventures
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Tony Conrad is Co-Founder & CEO of about.me (acquired by Aol in December 2010) and Sphere which (acquired by AOL in April, 2008). He is also a Founding Venture Partner at True Ventures, leading investments in WordPress, MakerBot, Typekit, Milk to name a few. Tony grew up in a small Indiana farming community. Since, he's lived in Chicago, New York, New Delhi, Paris, Jakarta & San Francisco. He's into entrepreneurship, travel, languages, art, architecture, scuba, running, biking & swimming (KONA Rohto Ironman). Most importantly, he's got serious parking karma to offset my unfortunate habit of rooting for the Cubs. |
Thomas Debass - Director - The Secretary Of State’s Office Of Global Partnerships, U.S. Department Of State
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Thomas Debass serves as Director of the Secretary of State’s Office of Global Partnerships, responsible for the economic growth, global finance, and entrepreneurship/innovation portfolio. His recent partnership accomplishment includes the successful launch of Liberalizing Innovation Opportunity Nations (LIONS@FRICA) Partnership with Microsoft and other partners that will bring DEMO to Africa for the first time. Prior to joining State Department, he was Lead Economist with the Overseas Private Investment Corporation and served as a Senior Advisor with the United States Agency for International Development. Before joining public service, Thomas was co-founder and managing director of an African-focused web startup, Afridigital. |
Don Dodge - Developer Advocate - Google
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Don Dodge is a Developer Advocate at Google helping developers build new applications on Google platforms and technologies. Prior to joining Google Don was a startup evangelist at Microsoft. Don is also a veteran of five start-ups including Forte Software, AltaVista, Napster, Bowstreet, and Groove Networks. Don has been in the software business for more than 25 years. He started his software career with Digital Equipment, aka DEC, in the database group. |
Josh Elman - Principal - Greylock Partners
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Josh joined Greylock as a principal in 2011. Over the past 15 years, Josh has worked in product and engineering roles at some of the leading companies in social, commerce, and media. Prior to Greylock, Josh was a product lead for growth and relevance at Twitter, and helped Twitter grow it's active user base by nearly 10x. Before Twitter, Josh worked on the platform at Facebook and led the launch of Facebook Connect. Earlier in his career, Josh led product management for Zazzle, was part of the early team at LinkedIn focused on growth and jobs, and led product and engineering for RealJukebox and RealPlayer at RealNetworks. |
Ross Fubini - Partner - Kapor Capital
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Ross was the Co-Founder and a Board Member of Cubetree, a Gartner Visionary enterprise social collaboration company which is used by the Fortune 100 including SAP, Intuit, and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. He currently serves as an advisor to Kapor Capital, Palantir Technology, Facebook Causes, and other early stage technology companies. From 2010-2011 Ross was a Vice President for SuccessFactors (NASDAQ:SFSF) which acquired his company CubeTree in 2010. Ross is also an active board member of the Level Playing Field Institute (LPFI), a Kapor Foundation-funded non-profit that promotes innovative approaches to fairness in education and the workplace. He is an avid triathlete, marathon runner, and Ironman competitor. He holds a B.S. in engineering and art from Carnegie Mellon University. |
Jay Goldberg - Senior Analyst covering Communications Technologies - Think Equity
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Mr. Goldberg is a Senior Analyst covering Communications Technologies with Think Equity. He joined the team in 2012, and prior to that spent nine years with Deutsche Bank's Wireless Research Team. In an earlier life, Mr. Goldberg spent almost ten years living and working in Mainland China, where he still visits frequently. He has a B.A. from U.C. Berkeley in Chinese History and an IMBA from the University of Chicago. You can find him on twitter @jaygoldberg. |
Sasan Goodarzi - CIO- Intiut
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Sasan Goodarzi is Intuit's chief information officer, responsible for the strategy and operations of the company's technology and business infrastructure. He rejoined Intuit in 2011 after serving as CEO of Nexant Inc. From 2004 - 2010, Goodarzi led several major Intuit businesses, including president of Intuit Financial Services, and vice president of the professional tax division. Previously, he held roles at Invensys and Honeywell and served as CEO and co-founder of Lazer Cables Inc. Goodarzi earned his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering at the University of Central Florida and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. |
Zach Gostout - Co-Founder- Blueprint Health
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Zach Gostout has spent his entire career living and breathing life in a medical startup, and is currently applying his acquired industry knowledge as one of the two co-founders of Blueprint Health Inc., a San Francisco based startup intent on redesigning hospital software systems using modern technology. |
David Hagan - President and Chief Executive Officer - Boingo Wireless
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As president and CEO, Dave is responsible for the strategic direction and day-to-day operations at Boingo. He has over 20 years experience in senior management roles in the telecommunications industry and has served as division president and executive vice president for Sprint, launching both the consumer business and an ISP service in Canada under the Sprint brand. Dave was previously CEO for FirstSource Corp. and President/Chief Operating Officer of Ticketmaster Online CitySearch. Dave is the Vice-Chairman of the CEA Wireless Division board, and a member of the CEA Board of Industry Leaders (BIL). Boingo launched at DEMO in 2002. |
Tracy Isacke - Director of Investments and Business Development - Telefónica Digital
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As Director of Investments and Business Development, Tracy is spearheading the growth of Telefónica Digital. Tracy joined Telefónica in 2006 as the head of the Enterprise Sales Team for O2 UK, quickly winning a number of major accounts and significantly reducing churn by focusing on customer satisfaction. Tracy started her career at Xerox, becoming the first female member of the UK Board, leading a team of over 450 people. She then spent four years getting a taste of what life is like in an early stage company, working in a VC-backed start-up that went on to achieve a successful exit. |
Jason Johnson - Managing Partner - Founders Den
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Jason Johnson is the Managing Partner of Founders Den, as well as CEO and co-founder of mobile software startup AirCover. He is also the co-founder of TEDxSF and RethinkBooks, a mentor for Founders Institute and an advisor to multiple startups. Previously he was an entrepreneur and Vice President of Dolby Laboratories (NYSE: DLB), Vice President of Global IP Solutions (acquired by Google) and was the co-founder and CEO of InterQuest Communications (acquired by Darwin Networks). He lives in San Francisco with his wife and son. |
Sheila Jordan - Senior Vice President of Communication and Collaboration IT - Cisco Systems
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Sheila Jordan is senior vice president of Communication and Collaboration IT at Cisco Systems, reporting to CIO Rebecca Jacoby. Since joining Cisco in 2005, she has assumed increasing leadership responsibilities within the IT organization and was promoted to her current position in November 2011. Today Sheila is responsible for delivering and integrating key IT services that touch Cisco’s global workforce. Her goal is to drive productivity and a superior, holistic end-user experience for all employees through an integrated architectural approach. She oversees a worldwide team of more than 500 IT professionals. |
Clay Kellogg - Chief Revenue Officer - Chartboost
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Clay Kellogg is the Chief Revenue Officer for Chartboost. Clay is responsible for leading the sales and business development teams for Chartboost, a technology platform that powers over 4,000 mobile games. Clay previously ran the Global Mobile Platform and Partnerships team and the AdMob Application Sales team at Google. He joined Google in May 2010 as part of the company’s acquisition of AdMob where he led the Business Development and Publisher Partnership teams for North America. Before joining AdMob, Clay held various Product Management, Business Development, and Sales management roles at Qualcomm, Autodesk, InfoSpace, and Kivera. Clay holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Michigan and an MBA from Harvard Business School. |
Jason Krikorian - General Partner - DCM
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Jason holds the title of General Partner, DCM. He is currently a board member of FiveStars, SigFig and Basis Science. Jason brings an entrepreneur’s perspective to DCM, having previously co-founded the digital media and device company Sling Media. Among its many accolades, Sling Media received an Emmy Award for the Slingbox. At Sling Media, Jason held various positions including EVP of Business Development, EVP of Marketing, and CFO during the evolution of the company. The breadth of his responsibilities there reflects the extensive expertise required of an entrepreneur and exemplifies Jason's capacity to guide portfolio companies along in their development at DCM. |
Mitch Lasky - General Partner - Benchmark Partner
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Mitch Lasky has spent more than two decades in the mobile gaming, new media and interactive entertainment business. Prior to joining Benchmark Capital, Mitch served as executive vice president of Mobile and Online at Electronic Arts. Previously, he was chairman and CEO of JAMDAT Mobile. Prior to JAMDAT, Mitch served as general manager of eCompanies Wireless LLC, a startup incubator. He also spent time at Activision and most recently as EVP of Worldwide Studios. Mitch has also practiced intellectual property law, worked at the Walt Disney Company and started a massively multiplayer online game company. |
Claire Lee - Head of Partnerships, Emerging Business Team - Microsoft Corporation
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Claire moved to Silicon Valley in 2011 to lead partnerships for the Emerging Business Team at Microsoft, engaging partners globally to support early stage software developers and startups. Claire formed part of the team that created the BizSpark program in 2008, with over 50,000 startups in 110 countries and 2,400 partners. BizSpark partners comprise leading incubators, accelerators, universities, entrepreneurship groups, foundations, banks, and organizations that enable early stage companies. Examples include StartX and Startup Weekend. Before Microsoft, Claire worked with Compaq at the global distributor, Ingram Micro and with Siemens at Marconi Communications. Claire began her career as a graduate with IBM Ireland. |
Cindy McKenzie - SVP, Enterprise Application Services - Fox Group
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Cindy McKenzie is responsible for developing and delivering shared application services to over 10,000 employees at more than 9 Fox and News Corporation companies around the world. Areas supported include Finance, Human Resources, Payroll, Legal, Corporate Security, Content Security, Corporate Intranet, Tax, Treasury, Audit, Risk, and Royalties. Cindy joined Fox in 2001 as VP of Enterprise Technical Systems for Fox Filmed Entertainment. In 2006, her organization was migrated into the broader Fox Group where Cindy led the implementation of a shared services organization and corresponding governance model supporting all Fox companies. Since the group’s inception the number of services and companies supported has grown by over 50%. |
Jason Mendelson - Managing Director - Foundry Group
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Jason has over a dozen years of experience in the venture capital and technology industries in a multitude of investing, operational and engineering roles. Prior to co-founding Foundry Group, Jason was a Managing Director and General Counsel for Mobius Venture Capital, where he also acted as its chief administrative partner overseeing all operations of the firm. He currently serves on the board of directors of Attachments.me, Brightleaf, Next Big Sound, Oblong,Occipital, Openspace, Organic Motion, Sifteo, Singly, Sympoz and Urban Airshipfor Foundry Group. |
Claudia Fan Munce - Managing Director - IBM Venture Capital Group
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Claudia Fan Munce has been Managing Director of the IBM Venture Capital Group since 2004. In addition to this role, she is Vice President of IBM Corporate Strategy. Ms. Munce joined IBM’s Research Division in 1985 and she’s held many technical and business leadership positions within IBM. Externally, Ms. Munce serves on the board of directors of US National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) where she served previously as the chairwoman of its Corporate Advisory Board. She also served on the board of directors of Latin America Venture Capital Association (LAVCA) as well as many other venture advisory boards around the globe. |
Adam Nash - Executive in Residence - Greylock Partners
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Adam Nash is an entrepreneurial executive with a passion for product and deep experience with mobile and social platforms. He joined Greylock Partners in 2011 as an Executive in Residence, where he advises the leadership teams of the firm's existing consumer technology companies as well as evaluating new investment opportunities. Prior to joining Greylock, Adam was Vice President of Product Management at LinkedIn. Most recently, Adam led LinkedIn's Platform & Mobile products, including the launch of LinkedIn's open developer platform and their highly successful native applications and mobile web experiences. Adam was the founder and architect of LinkedIn Hackdays, a seminal program for driving the innovation culture at the company. He also was responsible for leading LinkedIn's search & cloud efforts, as well as forming and leading their user experience & design team. |
Steph Palmeri - Principal - SoftTech VC
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Steph Palmeri is a Principal with SoftTech VC, where she invests in early stage consumer internet companies including next generation commerce, mobile services, and saas. She has over a decade of experience working at the intersection of marketing and technology. At SoftTech VC, Steph’s work includes opportunity reviews, due diligence, market analysis, and dealflow management, in addition to active involvement with SoftTech VC portfolio companies. Prior to joining SoftTech VC, Steph was an active member in New York City’s emergent VC and entrepreneurial community where she was an Associate with early-stage venture fund NYC Seed and launched the NYC SeedStart incubator. |
Will Price - CEO - Flite
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Will Price is the CEO of Flite, an online advertising technology company. Flite pioneered the category of cloud-based advertising, helping brands and publishers deliver ads, powered by the real-time web, that outperform traditional display by 10+ times. Today, the company powers advertising solutions for P&G, LinkedIn, IDG, CBS, L’Oreal, Schwab, and other leading companies. Prior to joining Flite, Will was Managing Director at Hummer Winblad Venture Partners. Previously, Will served as CEO and COO of several software startups. He graduated from Harvard College and earned his MBA from Northwestern University. |
Adeo Ressi - CEO - Founder Institute
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Adeo Ressi is CEO of the Founder Institute, an idea-stage incubator for high-tech entrepreneurs with chapters in over 26 cities worldwide. The Institute plans to help launch 1,000 companies per year worldwide. Adeo serves as the Founding Member of TheFunded.com, an online resource for CEO's to research, rate, and review venture firms worldwide. TheFunded.com has two goals: streamline the fundraising process and encourage more innovation through venture investment. |
Andrew Rosenthal - CSO - Massive Health
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Andrew J. Rosenthal serves as Chief Strategy Officer of Massive Health, a San Francisco-based health engagement company with investors including Greylock Partners and Andreessen Horowitz. Rosenthal graduated from Harvard Business School, and the University of Pennsylvania, where he focused on consumer health and healthcare systems. He co-founded happier.com, an online consumer wellness platform, from 2008. His work has been widely featured, including the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, and NBC Nightly News. He is an advisor to the SXSW Health Accelerator program and the Oliver Wyman Health Innovation Center. Andrew is @rosenthal on twitter. |
Harshul Sanghi - Managing Partner - American Express Ventures
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Harshul Sanghi is the managing partner of American Express Ventures at American Express, with extensive corporate venture and mobile experience and relationships. He’s focused on forging partnerships with the technology and venture community to continue strengthen American Express’ leadership position. Harshul oversaw the opening of and runs American Express’ first Silicon Valley office. He is also leading American Express’ $100 million Digital Commerce Initiative, working with his team to invest in innovative, digital commerce start-ups. |
Tom Soderstrom - CTO - Jet Propulsion Laboratory
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Tom is the IT CTO at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He leads a collaborative, practical, and hands-on approach with JPL and industry to investigate and infuse emerging IT technology trends that are relevant to JPL, NASA, and large enterprises. Tom has led remote teams and large scale IT best practices and tools development and change efforts in small startups, large commercial companies, in international venues, and in the US Government arena. Tom is a frequent speaker on the future of IT. He is currently consulting with industry and government leaders on what we can do about on cloud computing, big data, mobility, consumerization and how to transform IT into Innovating Together. |
Scott Sangster - CEO - Health in Reach
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Scott Sangster is CEO of the online consumer-health company, Health In Reach, Inc. (healthinreach.com), a free service that offers discounts and online scheduling for medical and dental appointments around the country. Sangster is an active angel investor and the past-President of the Los Angeles network of Tech Coast Angels, the largest angel investor network in the U.S., with more than 300 members. He is a serial entrepreneur and M&A executive, with experience both founding and acquiring startups. Prior to Health In Reach, Sangster was responsible for strategic planning and corporate development at the Walt Disney Internet Group. Sangster currently sits on several philanthropic and for-profit boards, including the prestigious DEMO Conference. |
Pete Sonsini - General Partner - New Enterprise Associates
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Pete joined NEA in 2005 and focuses on early-stage enterprise software and consumer companies. He is currently co-head of NEA’s enterprise software practice group. Pete also serves on the board of the Silicon Valley Forum and in 2011 was named as a "Rising Star" of the next generation of venture capital general partners by Dow Jones Private Equity Analyst. Prior to joining NEA, Pete was Senior Director of Strategic Alliances at VMware. Pete received his MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, and his BA in Political Economy from the University of California, Berkeley. |
Seth Sternberg - Product Management Director for Platform on the Google+ team - Google
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Seth Sternberg is the Product Management Director for Platform on the Google+ team. Seth joined Google through its acquisition of Meebo, where he was Co-Founder and CEO. Meebo, a consumer Internet company, reached more than half of the U.S. internet population, working to make sites more social and engaging. Sternberg, along with college friends Elaine Wherry and Sandy Jen, started Meebo in 2005. The flagship product, the Meebo Bar, has been integrated by more than 8,000 websites including Entertainment Weekly, TV Guide, Dilbert, The Washington Examiner. Meebo investors included Sequoia Capital, Khosla Ventures, True Ventures and others. |
Mark Surgarman - Founding Partner - MHS Capital
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No bio available
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Matt Thompson, - General Manager of Developer and Platform Evangelism - Microsoft
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As General Manager of Microsoft’s developer & platform evangelism efforts, Matt has the first hand opportunity to both observe and work with a number of Silicon Valley’s most unique technology startups. His time is split between working with this influential community of technologists as they adopt Microsoft technologies (including Microsoft's cloud offering, Windows Azure, and new phone platform, Windows Phone 7); advising a number of early stage startups; and working with Microsoft customers & partners as they implement solutions on top of the breadth of the Microsoft platform offerings. Previously, as Sr. Director of Sun's Cloud engineering organization Matt was responsible for the development of Sun's platform as a service offering and related cloud developer tools. In a previous role, Matt was responsible for Sun's developer program and technology outreach worldwide. When not working you’ll likely find Matt off an island somewhere following his passion, underwater photography. Twitter: @developerfish |
