Thus spoke Howard Hartenbaum, a partner at August Capital, when he sat down with me last week at our Mobile First CrunchUp event in Palo Alto. For Hartenbaum, who admitted to being “tired” of being pitched “social” start-ups, mobile is the inevitable future of digital businesses – so inevitable, indeed, that he thinks the word will eventually disappear because it will become so ubiquitous.
Hartenbaum is unambiguously optimistic about monetizing mobile. He believes that mobile will revolutionize the traditional desktop advertising industry, replacing banner advertising with much more intimate and targeted advertising. He is also bullish about mobile as a provider of entertainment and as a commerce enabler. Most encouragingly of all, Hartenbaum believes that mobile is resulting in consumers paying for their content – thereby resulting in writers, musicians and filmmakers once again being able to monetize their work.
What is mobile
Why he’s tired of “social”
Monetizing mobile
Howard Hartenbaum joined August Capital in 2008. Prior to joining, he served as a General Partner at Draper Richards LP where he was the founding investor in Skype and a former member of the board of directors where his achievement resulted in his joining the Forbes Midas List of top venture capitalists. Before entering the venture capital field, Howard was at Hughes Electronics, where he was responsible for supporting business development, marketing and sales of satellite, information security and automotive...
Seattle, WA
San Diego, CA
Menlo Park, CA
San Francisco, CA
Berlin, Germany
Boston, MA
