We are pleased to announced the following disruptive speakers for TechCrunch Disrupt NYC 2011:
CEO, AOL
Tim Armstrong was appointed CEO and Chairman of AOL in March 2009. Before becoming the CEO of AOL, Armstrong presided over Google’s North American and Latin American advertising sales and operations teams. His team provided customers with local partnerships as well as centralized sales and services. They worked with some of the world’s most widely recognized brands and advertising agencies in addition to some of the fastest growing medium-sized companies. Armstrong joined Google from Snowball.com, where he was vice president of sales and strategic partnerships. Prior to his role at Snowball.com, he served as director of integrated sales & marketing at Starwave’s and Disney’s ABC/ESPN Internet Ventures, working across the companies’ Internet, TV, radio, and print properties. He started his career by co-founding and running a newspaper based in Boston, MA, before joining IDG to launch their first consumer Internet magazine, I-Way. Armstrong is an investor in Patch and sits on the boards of the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), the Advertising Council, and the Advertising Research Foundation. He is a graduate of and trustee at both Lawrence Academy and Connecticut College, where he earned a double major in economics and sociology.
Founder and CEO, Loog Guitars
Rafael Atijas is the founder and CEO of Loog Guitars, a project that started as his master’s thesis at NYU and was launched in March 2011 via Kickstarter, a fundraising website for creative projects. He set a goal to raise $15,000 and instead ended up raising $65,618 from people all over the world who believed in the project and wanted to play a part in bringing this idea to life. Thanks to them, Loog Guitars are now in production and will be ready to ship in May 2011. Loog Guitars make it easy for children to learn to play the guitar.
Co-founder, RDTN
Sean Bonner is a Los Angeles based entrepreneur, journalist, activist and enthusiast. Bonner has co-founded hackerspaces and blog networks, an art gallery, design firm and record label. He is a co-founder of RDTN, board member of Coffee Common, works closely with Neoteny Labs in Singapore and Tokyo and has been a regular contributor to BoingBoing.
CEO, betaworks
John Borthwick is CEO of betaworks. betaworks is new form of internet media company. Prior to betaworks John was Senior Vice President of Alliances and Technology Strategy for Time Warner Inc. John’s company, WP-Studio, founded in 1994, was one of the first content studios in New York’s Silicon Alley. John holds an MBA from Wharton (1994) and an undergraduate degree BA in Economics from Wesleyan University (1987).
Partner, Sequoia Capital
Roelof Botha is a partner at Sequoia Capital focusing on financial services, cloud computing, bioinformatics, consumer internet and mobile companies. Roelof sits on the boards of Aliph, Eventbrite, Mahalo, Meebo, Nimbula, Square, TokBox, Tumblr, Unity and Xoom. Roelof is a champion of consumer Web plays and considers himself as “just another consumer.” Roelof’s previous investments at Sequoia include Insider Pages and YouTube. Prior to joining Sequoia Capital in 2003, Roelof served as the Chief Financial Officer of PayPal during its sale to eBay. Earlier, he worked as a management consultant for McKinsey & Company. Roelof is a certified actuary (Fellow of the Faculty of Actuaries). Roelof was listed as #23 on Forbes’ 2007 Midas List, which identifies venture capital’s most successful professionals.
Co-founder & Partner, AOL Ventures
Jon Brod is a Co-Founder & Partner at AOL Ventures. Brod has more than 15 years experience as a senior executive with media and technology companies, both at the start-up and Fortune 500 levels. He joined AOL in 2009 through the company’s acquisition of community news and information site Patch, which Brod co-founded and served as CEO. Prior to that, he served as President and Chief Operating Officer of Polar Capital Group, was Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Portals Division of InterActiveCorp (IAC), was Senior Vice President and a member of the Executive Committee at Ask Jeeves, and was the first employee and Senior Vice President of Operations for Interactive Search Holdings, which was purchased by Ask Jeeves in 2004. During his career, Brod also spent time in sports, including six years at the NBA where he held various marketing and operations positions and where he established NBA Canada and launched the Raptors and Grizzlies expansion franchises. Brod graduated, cum laude, with a BS in History and Government from Bowdoin College.
Founder & CEO, PCH International
Liam Casey is the founder and CEO of PCH International, a venture-backed supply chain management company focused on the consumer electronics, personal computer, medical device, and telecommunication industries. PCH’s clients include industry-leading multinationals based in Silicon Valley and across North America. Liam founded PCH in 1996 and has grown the business to well over $100 million in revenue and over 800 employees in PCH’s operations in China, Ireland, UK, US, and South Africa. Liam is widely recognized as a business thought leader on international trade and business in China, earning him the nickname “Mr. China”. In 2007, he was awarded Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year in Ireland. He is a frequent guest speaker at corporate leadership events, trade shows, and Asia and Ireland-focused business forums. Liam is currently the Mayor of the People’s Republic of China on FourSquare.
CEO, RadiumOne
At 28, Gurbaksh Chahal is already leading his third start-up, RadiumOne. Like the two companies that preceded it, RadiumOne is pioneering new ways for Web users to be connected with the brands, ideas and products that interest them. Through its proprietary and patent-pending “Social Retargeting” technology, RadiumOne allows companies to take advantage of the ever-increasing amount of “social” data on the Internet to zero in on the consumers most likely to be receptive to their messages. This helps not only companies, since they can make efficient use of limited Web advertising budgets, but also potential customers, since they are presented with messages more relevant to their needs. RadiumOne is headquartered in San Francisco, and is funded by several prominent Silicon Valley venture capitalists. Satellite offices are in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and London. Gurbaksh founded RadiumOne in 2009, after recognizing the growing importance of social media Web sites. It was his third major insight into new ways that the constantly-changing Internet could be used to link companies and potential customers.
Co-founder, Quora
Charlie Cheever is the co-founder of Quora, formerly Alma Networks. Before founding Quora Charlie worked as an engineer and manager at Facebook, where he oversaw the creation of Facebook Connect and the Facebook Platform. Prior to joining Facebook, Charlie served as a Software Development Engineer at Amazon. Charlie graduated from Harvard College with an A.B. in Computer Science.
Co-founder and CEO, AirBnB
Brian is co-founder and CEO of AirBnB. His primary responsibility is driving the company vision and assembling a passionate team to realize that vision. Brian is a designer and entrepreneur who likes to disrupt the marketplace with ideas that change the way people live. Before AirBnB, Brian ran an industrial design shop in Los Angeles. Brian holds a BFA in industrial design from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD).
Founder & Managing Partner, SoftTech VC
Based in Palo Alto, California, Jean-Francois “Jeff” Clavier is the Founder and Managing Partner of SoftTech VC, one of the most active seed stage investors in Web 2.0 startups. Since 2004, Jeff has invested in more than 20 consumer Internet companies developing new concepts (such as social media) or revisiting “old” ideas with a new set of economics and technologies. In 2007, Jeff was recognized as one of the 13 “Web 2.0 King Makers” by Business 2.0, and is often noted for his investments in categories such as “passion-centric communities,” or for having already sold five of his companies in the past two years through successful M&As. Jeff’s 19 years of operational, entrepreneurial and venture capital experience enable him to add relevant perspective and value to the companies in which he invests.
Publisher, The Daily
Prior to coming to The Daily, Greg Clayman was executive vice president of Digital Distribution & Business Development for MTV Networks. He managed digital business across MTVN, working closely with its channels to develop new opportunities for distribution of digital content and strategic digital partnerships. Clayman also oversaw the MTVN Mobile Media group, supporting the company’s brands in developing and distributing a wide portfolio of mobile content and applications. Before joining MTVN, Clayman co-founded Upoc, one of the first mobile content companies in the United States, and ran its marketing, sales and business development groups.
Chief Marketing Officer and SVP, GE
Beth Comstock is Chief Marketing Officer and SVP of GE. She leads the company’s organic growth and commercial innovation initiatives, and the sales, marketing and communications functions. She is responsible for the GE-wide business platforms ecomagination, devoted to reducing environmental impact with new technology, and healthymagination, focused on achieving sustainable health through innovation by lowering costs, improving quality and reaching more people. She returned to the CMO role after having spent over two years as President of Integrated Media at NBC Universal. Beth oversaw the television ad sales, marketing and research teams, with a focus on new advertising innovations. She led the company’s digital media development and distribution, including the formation of hulu.com, Peacock Equity and the acquisition of ivillage.com. In 2003, she was named GE’s first Chief Marketing Officer in more than 20 years and as such, helped reinvigorate marketing across the company, introducing ecomagination, Imagination Breakthrough innovations and the “imagination at work” brand campaign. Previously, Beth held a succession of publicity and promotions roles at GE, NBC, CBS and Turner Broadcasting. She began her career in local television production in Virginia. Beth is a trustee of the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. She is a graduate of the College of William and Mary. She and her husband have two daughters.
CEO & Co-founder, about.me
Tony Conrad is CEO & co-founder of about.me (acquired by AOL in December 2010). He is also a Founding Venture Partner at True Ventures where he serves on the Board of Directors of Automattic (WordPress), appssavvy, StockTwits, RescueTime, PastFuture (GDGT), KISSmetrics, 20×200, FREEjit, Small Batch (Typekit), WeGame and led True’s investment MakerBot & Plancast. Tony also serves as a Special Advisor to AOL Ventures. Previously, Tony co-founded Sphere which was acquired by AOL in April, 2008. In addition, Tony has served on the Board of Directors for Oddpost (acquired by Yahoo), Iconoculture, MusicNow (acquired by Circuit City), and Centive (acquired by Xactly). Tony also played an active role managing investments in Post Communications (NASDAQ: NTVS), QuinStreet (NASDAQ: QNST), Danger (acquired by Microsoft), Sabrix and Stonyfield Farms (acquired by Groupe Danone).
Angel Investor, SV Angel
Ronald Conway has been an active angel investor for over 15 years. He was the Founder and Managing Partner of the Angel Investors LP funds (1998-2005) whose investments included: Google, Ask Jeeves, Paypal, Good Technology, Opsware, and Brightmail. Ron was previously with National Semiconductor Corporation in marketing positions from 1973-1979, and Altos Computer Systems as a co-founder, President and CEO from 1979-1990. He eventually took Altos public in 1982 and served as CEO of Personal Training Systems (PTS) from 1991-1995. PTS went on to be acquired by SmartForce/SkillSoft. Ron has served/serves on Boards/Advisory Boards including: Twitter, Digg, Bright Mail, Ask Jeeves, Rupture (acquired by EA), Associated Content(acquired by Yahoo!), Facebook, RockYou, ScanScout, Zappos, Trulia, StumbleUpon, Plaxo (acquired by Comcast), Photobucket (acquired by Fox), and Anchor Intelligence (co-founder). Ron was recently named #6 in Forbes Magazine Midas list of top “deal-makers” in 2008 and is actively involved in numerous philanthropic endeavors. Ron is Vice Chairman of the UCSF Medical Foundation in SF, Board Member of The Tiger Woods Foundation, and SF Homeless Connect, and on the Benefit Committee of Ronald McDonald House, College Track, and the Blacked Eyed Peas-PeaPod Academy Foundation.
Co-founder, Foursquare
Dennis Crowley is a co-founder of Foursquare, a location-based social networking service. Previously, he co-founded Dodgeball, a network of the same nature which sold to Google in 2005. He has been named one of the “Top 35 Innovators Under 35” by MIT’s Technology Review magazine (2005) and has won the “Fast Money” bonus round on the TV game show Family Feud (2009). His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Wired, Time Magazine, Newsweek, MTV, Slashdot and NBC. He is currently an Adjunct Professor at NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program.
Co-founder, Foodspotting
Soraya Darabi is the business leader and co-founder of Foodspotting. Previously she managed digital partnerships and social media at the New York Times and was a product lead at Drop.io.
CEO and Co-founder, Hunch
Currently, CEO & Co-founder of Hunch. Previously, CEO & Co-founder of SiteAdvisor (acquired by McAfee). Personal investor in early-stage technology companies, including Skype, TrialPay, DocVerse, Invite Media, Gerson Lehrman Group, ScanScout, OMGPOP, BillShrink, Oddcast, Panjiva, Knewton, and a handful of other startups that are still in stealth mode.
CEO & Co-Founder, Soluto
Tomer Dvir is the CEO and Co-Founder of Soluto. Before co-founding Soluto, Tomer Dvir was CTO at MDG Medical, where he led the software and hardware development of medication dispensation products for hospitals. Before that he co-founded InetB, a web applications software provider.
Founder & Managing Partner, IA Ventures
Roger Ehrenberg is the founder and Managing Partner of IA Ventures. He is also the co-founder of Kinetic Trading Strategies, a technology firm that has developed a unique platform for performing back-testing, simulation and roll-forward analysis on models consuming massive volumes of structured and unstructured data. Prior to forming IA Ventures, Roger was an active angel investor through IA Capital Partners, a seed-stage investment firm focused on digital media and financial technology. From 2004 to 2009, Roger seeded 40 companies, including bit.ly, Buddy Media, Clickable, Invite Media (sold to Google), Magnetic, MyTrade (sold to TD Ameritrade), Solve Media, Stocktwits, TheLadders, TweetDeck and Wallstrip (sold to CBS Interactive). Roger currently sits on the boards of BankSimple, Kinetic Trading Strategies, Metamarkets, Recorded Future, and The Trade Desk, and is a Board observer of SaveWave. Formerly, he served on the boards of Alphacet, Buddy Media, Global Bay Mobile Technologies, Magnetic, Selerity and Stocktwits.
VP of Global Advertising Sales, Facebook
Carolyn Everson is the Vice President of Global Advertising Sales at Facebook, where she leads the global advertising team focused on top strategic accounts and global agencies. In addition, she oversees media strategy, advertising sales, and account management. Prior to Facebook, Carolyn was the Corporate Vice President of Microsoft’s Global Advertising Sales and Trade Marketing Teams. Carolyn led the company’s advertising business across Bing, MSN, Windows Live, Mobile, Gaming, Atlas and the Microsoft Media Network. Carolyn spent seven years at MTV Networks. Her last role was as Chief Operating Officer and Executive Vice President of U.S. Ad Sales for MTV Networks where she oversaw strategic planning, operations and finance for MTVN’s U.S. Ad Sales department. She also was responsible for MTVN’s Direct Response business.
Partner, General Catalyst Partners
Chris focuses on investments in consumer Internet, software and mobile with particular emphasis on seed stage investments and working with Entrepreneurs-In-Residence to launch new businesses. Prior to joining General Catalyst Partners, Chris co-founded Ignition Talent Group, a talent acquisition and advisory firm focused on scouting out the next generation of entrepreneurs and bringing the best executive and technical talent to leading venture backed companies. Previously, Chris was a Vice President with Bessemer Venture Partners where he led investments in digital media & mobile companies. Prior to BVP, he was a consultant with Bain & Co where he advised on large scale technology buyouts. Prior to Bain, Chris spearheaded the successful turnaround of Skybitz, a wireless enabled SaaS company, where he served as led Product Management, Finance & Business Development. Earlier in his career, Chris founded an investment advisory firm for angel investors & private equity funds and served as a Venture Advisor to an early stage venture capital fund where he led investments in SkyBitz and Applied Semantics (acquired by Google). He started his career on Wall Street in the private equity group of Cowen & Company. Chris received a BA in International Relations & Business from Tufts University & the Fletcher School of Diplomacy. He has been published in Harvard Business Review, Institutional Investor, The Journal of Private Equity and other leading publications.
Managing Partner, High Line Venture Partners
Shana Fisher is the Managing Partner of High Line Venture Partners, a NY Based venture fund focused on early stage investments. From December 2003 to June 2010, Ms. Fisher served as IAC’s Senior Vice President, Strategic Planning & Mergers and Acquisitions, and prior to that as the Senior Vice President of Business Operations for IAC. Previously, Ms. Fisher served as Vice President and Director, Media and Technology Mergers and Acquisitions and Corporate Finance for Allen & Company, LLC. In this capacity she led principle investments and advised publicly traded technology firms, private telecommunications firms and media companies. Prior to Allen & Company, LLC., Ms. Fisher was a program manager for the Microsoft Corporation. Ms. Fisher received her B.A. from Hampshire College with a triple major in Sculpture, Philosophy and Linguistics and attended the Master of Arts program at New York University’s ITP.
Managing Partner, Metamorphic Partners
Prior to founding Metamorphic Ventures, Lewis Gersh was previously CEO of Worldly Information Network (WIN), a digital media and data services company he founded and built to $10 million in revenues before its sale.
Partner, Y Combinator
Paul Graham is a partner at Y Combinator. He is also the author of On Lisp (1993), ANSI Common Lisp (1995), and Hackers & Painters (2004). In 1995, he and Robert Morris started Viaweb, the first ASP, which in 1998 became Yahoo! Store. In 2002 he discovered a simple spam filtering algorithm that inspired the current generation of filters.
Partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
Bing was Chief Creative Officer of Electronic Arts from 1998 to 2008, after heading EA marketing and product development off and on since EA’s founding in 1982. He helped write the founding business plan that attracted KPCB as an initial investor. Bing drove EA’s branding strategy with EA Sports, EA’s pricing strategy for package goods and online games, and contributed design and marketing on many EA franchises including John Madden Football, The Sims, Sim City, Need for Speed, Tiger Woods Golf, Club Pogo and Command and Conquer. Since joining Kleiner Perkins in 2008, he has focused on the “videogamification of everything”, and has led investments in Zynga, where he serves as Operating Director, and ng:moco. Bing has also been a director at Amazon since 2003, and held the game industry’s first endowed chair in game design, at USC School of Cinematic Arts. He is a trustee of the Urban School of San Francisco. Gordon earned an M.B.A. degree from Stanford University, and a B.A. degree from Yale University. Bing’s favorite games of all time are World of Warcraft, the Sims, Diablo, Pogo, Civilization, Columns, Freecell, Farmville and Mafia Wars.
Programming Director, Seed.com at AOL
Saul Hansell is the Programming Director for AOL’s Seed.com. Prior to joining AOL, he was the editor of the New York Times Bits blog and the technology coverage on nytimes.com. Based in New York, he is particularly interested in the evolution of Internet publishing, video, music and marketing. He joined The Times as a reporter in 1992, spending five years covering banking, then 10 years writing about the Internet and electronic commerce.
Founder, charity:water
When Scott Harrison was 28, Harrison had a “crisis of conscience” during a vacation in Uruguay. Harrison had an epiphany about his job and life: “I was selling selfishness and decadence.” He recalled feeling like “the most selfish, sycophantic and miserable human being” and “the worst person I knew.” In August 2004, Harrison quit his job and volunteered as a photojournalist for the Christian charity Mercy Ships, which operates a fleet of hospital ships offering free healthcare. He served aboard the Mercy Ship Anastasis in West Africa, taking over 60,000 photos in 13 months. While on his first mission trip with Mercy Ships, Harrison received word that his mother was “miraculously healed” of her illness. Returning home from Africa in the fall of 2006, he started charity: water, which in less than 5 years has raised almost $40 million, and funded 3900 water projects in 19 countries that provide acces to clean drinking water for 1.7 million people.
Partner, Lerer Ventures
Eric Hippeau served as Chief Executive Officer of The Huffington Post from June, 2009 through March, 2011, when the Huffington Post was sold to AOL. In September 2006, Hippeau’s investment firm, Softbank Capital, was the first institutional investor in the Huffington Post, which was founded by Arianna Huffington and Kenneth Lerer in 2005. He started serving on the Board of Directors at the time of the investment. Prior to joining HuffPost, Hippeau was managing partner at Softbank Capital, a New York and Boston-based venture capital fund specializing in early stage investments in technology and digital media. He served on the board of Yahoo! from March 2, 1996 through April, 2011 and served on the boards of Geocities, CNET, Asia Global Crossing among others. Hippeau was also President of SoftBank International Ventures, where he established SoftBank’s international private equity funds and expanded them into Europe, Latin America and Asia. Hippeau joined Softbank Capital in 2000 from Ziff-Davis, Inc., where he was Chairman and CEO. Ziff- Davis was the preeminent media company serving the technology industry, publishing leading computer magazines such as PC Magazine and Computer Shopper. The company also conducted media trade shows such as Comdex, and offered media and marketing services in high technology.
VP Product, Google Apps, Google
Bradley oversees Google’s communications products and social applications including Google Talk, GrandCentral, Blogger and Picasa. Before joining Google, Bradley led Yahoo’s advanced development division, which developed new products such as Yahoo! Pipes, and drove the acquisition of products such as Flickr and MyBlogLog. Bradley Horowitz is the former vice president of Yahoo’s product strategy group. He led Yahoo’s efforts in building innovative products and technologies across the company. Horowitz drove innovation and leveraged Yahoo’s platform to deliver compelling Yahoo products and services to a community of 500 million users. In addition, he was responsible for the company’s initiative to open up its platform which included overseeing the Yahoo Developer Network (YDN). Prior to that, he managed a portfolio of products for Yahoo including media search, desktop search and the Yahoo Toolbar. Prior to joining Yahoo, Horowitz served as both the chief technical officer and the vice president of engineering for the Virage division of Autonomy, where he was responsible for the technical delivery of five major product lines. Prior to Autonomy, he founded Virage, the company widely recognized as the market creator and leader for advanced media indexing and analysis. Horowitz helped grow the company from “a garage startup” through its NASDAQ IPO. Horowitz was a PhD candidate at the MIT Media Lab. While at the Media Lab, he worked on a number of topics related to computer vision, graphics and image processing, which resulted in a patented new technique for the recovery of structure, motion and camera parameters from video sequences. Horowitz holds an MS in Media Science from MIT and a BS in Computer Science from the University of Michigan.
CEO & Co-founder, Lark Technologies, Inc.
Julia Hu is the CEO and co-founder of Lark Technologies, Inc. As a serial entrepreneur, she focused on growing early stage start-ups in consumer products and cleantech space. Prior to co- founding Lark Technologies, she was a Sustainability Chair for global startup incubator Clean Tech Open, where she launched its national sustainability Program to provide sustainability mentorship, education, judging, partnerships and environmental initiatives to startups all over America. She received her Masters and Bachelors at Stanford in Engineering, Engineer Management, and Design, and is a MBA Candidate at the MIT Sloan School of Management.
President & Editor-In-Chief, The Huffington Post Media Group
Arianna Huffington is the president and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post Media Group, a nationally syndicated columnist, and author of thirteen books. Her latest, Third World America, published in September 2010, chronicles the struggles of America’s besieged middle class. She is a frequent guest on television shows such as Charlie Rose, Real Time with Bill Maher, This Week with Christiane Amanpour, and The Rachel Maddow Show. In May 2005, she launched The Huffington Post, a news and blog site that has quickly become one of the most widely-read, linked to, and frequently-cited media brands on the Internet. She was named to the Time 100 of 2011, Time Magazine’s list of the world’s 100 most influential people, and to the Financial Times’ list of 50 people who shaped the decade. Originally from Greece, she moved to England when she was 16 and graduated from Cambridge University with an M.A. in economics. At 21, she became president of the famed debating society, the Cambridge Union.
Founder & CEO, Qwiki
Doug Imbruce is the Founder & CEO of Qwiki. Previously, he created an educational content network that helped 1,000,000 students per year select and pursue higher education. The network was acquired by a private equity firm in 2008. Earlier in his career, Doug worked for Warner Bros. Television and developed an automated web solution for thousands small businesses. He graduated from Columbia University in 2005.
Co-founder and CEO, Schematic Labs
Steve is the co-founder and CEO of Schematic Labs, a San Francisco-based startup that makes social entertainment apps for the iOS and Android platforms. The company’s first application is “SoundTracking” which is a fun, expressive and easy way to share the soundtrack to your life, combining music, photos, and geo-location. Prior to founding Schematic Labs, he served as Chief Marketing Officer, responsible for product marketing and business development, at imeem (acquired by MySpace). Joining in 2005, Steve helped conceive, develop and grow imeem into a social music service, focused on playlists, with over 45 million registered users. The company also built the first search & playback API platform for music and won a Crunchies award for Best Mobile App. Earlier in his career, Steve worked in product management, research and design at EMI Music’s Digital Development group, Xuma Technologies, WR Hambrecht, and Salon.com. Steve is also an advisory board member and/or investor to awesome companies such as Animoto, StumbleUpon, Conduit Labs (acquired by Zynga), StackMob, and Uber.
Co-founder and CEO, Uber
Travis Kalanick is a successful entrepreneur in the areas of consumer Internet, p2p, and enterprise content delivery. His most recent company, Red Swoosh, was sold for $19M to Akamai Technologies in April 2007 after receiving $1.7M in funding from August Capital, Mark Cuban, and Crosslink Capital. Prior companies include Scour, the world’s first p2p search engine where Kalanick also attained the dubious distinction of having been sued for $250 billion. Today Kalanick invests in and advises kick-ass startups founded by truly awesome entrepreneurs – while he recharges before his next gig.
Founder & CEO, Tumblr
David Karp is a high school dropout and the founder and CEO of Tumblr. Karp grew up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, the son of Barbara Ackerman and Michael Karp. He attended The Calhoun School from 3rd to 8th grade, where his mother taught science, until high school when he briefly attended Bronx Science before dropping out at the age of 15 and being homeschooled. Karp began interning for animation producer Fred Seibert at 14, and from there went on to work as a software consultant for UrbanBaby, an online parenting forum. Karp left UrbanBaby in 2006 and began working on Tumblr later that year. The site launched early in 2007.
VC & Managing Partner, First Round Capital
Josh Kopelman is a venture capitalist and Managing Partner at First Round Capital. Previously, Kopelman founded Half.com, which was acquired by eBay in 2000. He remained with eBay for three years, running the Half.com business unit and growing eBay’s Media marketplace to almost half a billion dollars in annual sales. In late 2003 Kopelman helped to found TurnTide, an anti-spam company that created the world’s first anti-spam router. TurnTide was acquired by Symantec just six months later. In 2001 Kopelman co-founded the Kopelman Foundation, a non-profit grant fund for social entrepreneurs. He also serves as a member of the advisory boards for Wharton Entrepreneurial Center and the Weiss Tech House at the University of Pennsylvania.
Co-founder, Sparrow
Dominique Leca is a co-founder of Sparrow, a minimalist mail application for Mac.
Partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
Aileen Lee is a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers; she joined in 1999. Her primary area of focus is working with consumer-oriented digital companies. Aileen has worked closely with the teams at companies such as ShopKick, Zazzle, Bloom Energy, Miasole, Blue Nile (NASDAQ: Nile), Friendster (acquired by MOL Global), Good Technology (ccquired by MOT), Tellme (Acquired by MSFT). She currently works with companies including Callaway Digital Arts, Offermatic, One Kings Lane, Plum District and RMG Networks (formerly Danoo), where she was founding CEO for two years. Prior to joining KPCB, Aileen worked at Gap Inc. in various operating roles. These included product management and marketing for Gap Online, as special assistant to Gap Inc.’s CEO, and in business development. She has also worked for Odwalla and for The North Face in brand and product marketing. Aileen began her career at Morgan Stanley in technology mergers & acquisitions. She has a Bachelor of Science from MIT and an MBA from the Harvard Business School, and is a Henry Crown Fellow of the Aspen Institute.
Co-founder, Katalyst Media
Ashton Kutcher started his career as a model, and then starred as Michael Kelso on “That 70’s Show”, which ran for a successful nine years on Fox. During his time on the show, he founded a film and TV production company, Katalyst Media, with partner Jason Goldberg. Together they have produced hit television shows like “Punk’d” and “Beauty and the Geek”, as well as the features “The Butterfly Effect” and “Guess Who”. Today, Katalyst is producing several new television shows including “Opportunity Knocks”, debuting on ABC on September 23, the upcoming “Game Show In My Head” for CBS, and an untitled reality show co-production with Tyra Banks for ABC. Katalyst just wrapped production on the feature “Spread”, starring Ashton and Anne Heche. Ashton can also be soon be seen in the upcoming “Personal Effects”, co-starring Michelle Pfiffer and Kathy Bates. Katalyst’s internet department produces several viral video internet campaigns. Ashton and Jason were listed in Details magazine’s “Mavericks” of 2006 and The Washington Post just named Ashton #3 on their list of “Most Innovative Celebrities in Digital Media”.
Co-founder and CEO, StockTwits
Howard Lindzon is co-founder and CEO of StockTwits® – a social network for traders and investors to share real-time ideas and information. StockTwits was recently named “one of the top 10 most innovative companies in web” by FastCompany and one of the “50 best websites” by Time magazine. Mr. Lindzon has more than twenty years experience in the financial community acting in both an entrepreneurial and investing capacity. With a unique vision for starting and successfully managing innovative companies, he is the Managing Partner of Social Leverage, a holding company that invests in early stage web businesses. Howard continues to manage a hedge fund he started in 1998. He created Wallstrip, and more than 400 original web video shows, which was purchased by CBS Corp. in 2007. He is an active angel with many success angel investments including: Rent.com, (purchased by Ebay in 2005 for $415 million), Golfnow.com (purchased by Comcast in June 2008), and Lifelock (lead investors include Bessemer Venture Partners and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers). Mr. Lindzon’s new media and internet business investments also include: Limos.com, Blogtalkradio.com, Buddy Media, Ticketfly, Assistly, Bit.ly and Tweetdeck. Mr. Lindzon received an MBA at Arizona State University and an MIM from The American Graduate School of International Management.
Charmain and CEO, Medialets
Eric Litman is Chairman and CEO of Medialets, the most widely deployed rich media ad platform for mobile. He is a pioneer of the Internet’s commercialization, and as a co-founder of Proxicom, helped to build one of the first, largest, and most successful publicly traded interactive agencies. Eric most recently served as Managing Director of WashingtonVC, an early-stage fund and incubator. Previously, Eric held senior executive roles in high-growth Internet businesses, as founder and CEO of Viaduct Technologies, a global Internet and mobile interactive agency. He was also instrumental in building digitalNATION, a web hosting and services provider, from its launch through its $100m acquisition by Verio Internet/NTT (NYSE: NTT). Eric began his career with technical and software engineering positions at GEnie, a pre-Internet online service provider, and NeXT Computer.
Founder and CEO, SoundCloud
Alexander Ljung is founder and CEO of SoundCloud, the audio platform that enables anybody to upload, record, promote and share their sounds on the web. Since its launch in 2008, Alexander has been responsible for all aspects of the site’s strategic vision and business development. Under his leadership, SoundCloud has quickly gained a reputation for being the number one platform available for audio creators to share, broadcast, track and promote their sounds.
CEO, Gilt Groupe
Susan Lyne is Chief Executive Officer of Gilt Groupe, an ecommerce company whose event-based sales model is changing consumer behavior and redefining luxury shopping. From November 2004 to July 2008, Ms Lyne was President and CEO of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia. In that capacity, she steered the company’s recovery and return to profitability, led by a three-fold increase in advertising revenue. Before 2008, Susan spent eight years at Disney/ABC, rising to President of ABC Entertainment where she oversaw the development of shows such as Desperate Housewives, Lost, and Grey’s Anatomy. Ms Lyne’s early career was spent in the magazine industry, including The Village Voice and Premiere Magazine. Ms. Lyne is a Board of Director for AOL and The New School and lives in New York City.
Chief Scientist, bit.ly
Hilary Mason is the Chief Scientist at bit.ly, where she finds sense in vast data sets. Her work involves both pure research and development of product-focused features. She’s also a co-founder of HackNY, a non-profit organization that connects talented student hackers from around the world with startups in NYC. Hilary recently started the data science blog Dataists and is a member of hacker collective NYC Resistor. She has discovered two new species, loves to bake cookies, and asks way too many questions.
Vice President of Location and Local Services, Google
Marissa Mayer is the Vice President of Local & Maps at Google. Previously she was Vice President of Search Product and User Experience. Mayer joined Google in 1999 as Google’s first female engineer, where she led the user interface and web server teams at that time. Her efforts have included designing and developing Google’s search interface, internationalizing the site to more than 100 languages, defining Google News, Gmail, and Orkut, and launching more than 100 features and products on Google.com. Prior to joining Google, Mayer worked at the UBS research lab (Ubilab) in Zurich, Switzerland, and at SRI International in Menlo Park, California. Mayer has been featured in various publications, including Newsweek (“10 Tech Leaders of the Future”), Red Herring (“15 Women to Watch”), Business 2.0 (“Silicon Valley Dream Team”), BusinessWeek, Fortune, and Fast Company.
Vice Chairman, Cross Commerce Media
Before becoming involved with CCM, Mr. Messer served as the Chairman and CEO of LinkShare until its sale to Rakuten for $425m in 2005. Under Mr. Messer’s leadership, LinkShare was recognized by Deloitte and Touche for two consecutive years as the fastest growing technology company in the New York Region. In 2005, Mr. Messer was awarded the prestigious Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award for the New York Region. Mr. Messer is an Affiliated Research Fellow at the Columbia University Institute of Tele-Information (CITI) and is considered an expert in cyber-communications and telecommunications. He holds a J.D. from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York and a B.A. from Lafayette University.
CEO and Co-founder, Path
Dave is the CEO and Co-Founder of Path. He is also an angel investor and advisor. And, avid skier. Before starting Path he was the Senior Platform Manager at Facebook. As an early member of the Facebook team, Dave played a variety of product, marketing, strategy, and management roles in expanding the Facebook ecosystem. Most recently, Dave was a co-inventor of Facebook Connect which was created to make the Internet a more social place. Facebook Connect is now used by over 1 million websites and applications to empower over 150 million users to connect and share with their friends across the Web, the iPhone, and many other devices and consoles. Earlier, Dave was a co-inventor of the revolutionary Facebook Platform, the world’s first social platform. Since launch, the multi-billion dollar Facebook Platform ecosystem has grown to include over 1 million developers in 180 countries that have created over 550,000 applications used monthly by over 70% of Facebook’s 500 million users worldwide. Prior to Facebook, Dave held positions at Apple in product and marketing. In his college dorm room, he also founded a small design focused Internet company called DM Design Studios.
Chief Architect, Bing Local Search, Microsoft
Barney Pell is Chief Architect for Local Search for Bing. He was previously Founder and CEO of Powerset, a natural language search engine acquired by Microsoft. Earlier, he was an Entrepreneur in Residence at Mayfield VC, an autonomous robotics researcher and manager at NASA, and a pioneer of general game-playing programs in AI. He’s also Associate Founder and Trustee of Singularity University and an active angel investor and advisor to startups.
President, Canvas Networks
Christopher “moot” Poole is the founder of 4chan—a simple, image-based bulletin board. Since its inception, 4chan has grown from a niche site targeting anime fans, to one of the largest and most influential communities on the ‘Net. Commanding over 9 million users a month, many popular viral videos, phenomena and memes get their start on 4chan. In 2009, moot was selected by TIME Magazine’s editors as one of the “TIME 100”: an annual list of “The World’s Most Influential People,” in the Builders & Titans category. In addition, readers voted moot as “The World’s Most Influential Person” in an online poll conducted on TIME.com. This year he was a featured speaker at the TED 2010 conference, held in Long Beach, California. Christopher has been profiled by a number of major news outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, TIME, CNN, and the BBC. He has participated as a panelist at conferences held at MIT and Yale Universities, and guest lectured at Duke, Yale, and NYU. Presently, he is living in New York City and pursuing an undergraduate degree in anthropology/sociology.
Co-founder & CEO, CloudFlare
Matthew is the co-founder and CEO of CloudFlare, Inc. Matthew wrote his first computer program when he was 7, and hasn’t been able to shake the bug since. After attending the University of Chicago Law School, he worked as an attorney for one day before jumping at the opportunity to be a founding member of a tech startup. He hasn’t looked back. CloudFlare is Matthew’s third entrepreneurial venture. Matthew holds a degree in English and Computer Science from Trinity College. He graduated with highest honors from the Harvard Business School where he was a George F. Baker Scholar and was awarded the Dubliner Prize for Entrepreneurship. He earned a JD from the University of Chicago and is a member of the Illinois Bar. He teaches technology law as an adjunct professor at the John Marshall Law School where he serves on the Board of Advisors for the Center for Information Technology and Privacy Law. He is also the co-founder of Project Honey Pot.
Co-creator, Gilf
Dan Provost is a designer working and living in New York City. He works as an interaction designer at frog design and is the co-creator of the Glif, a crowd-funded tripod mount and stand accessory for the iPhone. After the success of the Glif project, Dan and his design partner Thomas Gerhardt created Studio Neat, a design studio with the goal of creating simple products at a small scale. Dan also runs The Russians Used a Pencil, a blog that celebrates simplicity in design.
COO, Square
Keith is the Chief Operating Officer at Square and a prominent angel investor. Previously, he was the Vice President of Strategy & Business Development for Slide, where he is responsible for Slide’s corporate strategy and partnerships. During his tenure, Slide has become the world’s leading social entertainment company, offering millions of people worldwide a fun way to communicate and engage on social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace. Prior to Slide, Keith served as Vice President of Business & Corporate Development at LinkedIn. Earlier in his career, Keith served as Executive Vice President of Business Development and Policy for PayPal, and is said to be the only person who owns equity in every VC-financed consumer Internet company founded by former PayPal employees. He currently serves on the board of directors of Yelp, Xoom, Vendio, and FanIQ. He was an early investor in YouTube and LinkedIn, and is a limited partner at Sequoia Capital. Keith also practiced at the prestigious law firm Sullivan & Cromwell.
Co-founder and CEO, TrialPay
Alex Rampell is the co-founder and CEO of TrialPay, where he is responsible for general management and building corporate infrastructure. Prior to TrialPay, Alex co-founded FraudEliminator, the first consumer anti-phishing company, which merged into SiteAdvisor and was acquired by McAfee in April 2006. Alex began his career writing and selling consumer software on bulletin board systems and the nascent Internet. His first successful company, started at age 11, gained hundreds of thousands of paying consumers worldwide and had products featured in Forbes, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, “Today,” CNBC and BusinessWeek. Alex serves on the board of directors for Backstage Games and friend.ly, and is an investor in over 15 venture backed companies, including Hunch, Bloomreach, BillShrink, Lefora, World Golf Tour, and Datalot. He holds an AB in Applied Math and Computer Science, cum laude, from Harvard University.
CEO, Zecco
Michael Raneri is CEO of Zecco.
Prior to Zecco, Mr. Raneri was CEO of MeeVee. Mr.Raneri also held variety of management positions at Charles Schwab & Company and Quick & Reilly, Inc.
Host, The Charlie Rose Show
Charlie Rose is an American television interviewer and journalist. He entered television journalism full-time in 1974, when he became the managing editor of the PBS series Bill Moyers’ International Report. He currently hosts the Charlie Rose Show, where he has developed a reputation as a skilled interviewer.
General Partner, Spark Capital
Bijan Sabet is a General Partner at Spark Capital. Bijan led Spark’s investments in Twitter, thePlatform (acquired by Comcast), Boxee, OMGPOP, Ex.fm and Tumblr. Prior to joining Spark, Bijan was Senior Vice President, Corporate Development of GameLogic after serving as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Charles River Ventures (CRV). Before his work at CRV, Bijan was Vice President, Business Development and Product Management at Moxi Digital where he was responsible for establishing and managing strategic relationships with cable and satellite operators as well as driving product strategy. In this role, Bijan was part of the early team that introduced the MoxiMedia Center, a low-cost replacement for a digital cable or satellite set-top box that integrates Digital Video Recording, Music Jukebox, DVD player, and Internet Gateway into one device that wirelessly networks video, audio, and broadband connectivity throughout the home. Moxi later merged with Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s Digeo and is currently deployed by Charter, Comcast and Adelphia Cable.
Founder, Lowercase Capital
An accomplished venture investor, private equity principal, company advisor, entrepreneur, and public speaker, Chris manages a portfolio of over three-dozen consumer web, mobile, and wireless technology start-ups as well as an array of mature enterprises through his fund holding company, Lowercase Capital. Among his representative investments is Twitter Inc., where Chris was one of the first investors and works with the company as a strategic advisor. Previously, Chris served as Head of Special Initiatives at Google Inc In that role, among other responsibilities, he founded and headed up the alternative access and wireless divisions. His most visible projects include Google’s 700MHz and TV white spaces spectrum initiatives, the company’s groundbreaking data center in Oregon and Google’s free citywide WiFi network in Mountain View, CA. Chris also spearheaded many of Google’s business development and M&A transactions and was on the founding team of the company’s New Business Development organization. Before joining Google, Chris held a number of executive roles at one of the world’s largest streaming and digital media distribution companies, Speedera Networks (acquired by Akamai Technologies), and was ultimately responsible for their legal and corporate development efforts. Prior to Speedera, Chris was an attorney with the Silicon Valley law firm of Fenwick & West where he handled venture capital, mergers & acquisitions, and licensing transactions for technology clients such as Macromedia, VeriSign, and Kleiner Perkins. In 2008, Chris proudly worked on President Barack Obama’s campaign as a Telecommunications, Media, and Technology advisor, a speaking surrogate, a field office volunteer, and as Co-Chair of Finance and a Trustee of the Presidential Inaugural Committee.
Managing Director, Mosaic Venture Partners
Dave Samuel is Managing Director at Mosaic Venture Partners. Dave was President of Rogers Wave from its inception and led North America’s most aggressive rollout of high-speed Internet access over cable. Dave was also a consultant with McKinsey & Company and a Senior Executive with Torstar Corporation. Early in his career, Dave was an investment banker with Morgan Stanley & Co., where he executed various financial transactions.
Co-founder, Zenbe
Zenbe Co-founder Peter Stern previously created Datek Online, a pioneer in online financial services. Peter led its growth to one of the four largest online brokerage firms before merging with Ameritrade in 2002.
Co-founder, Kickstarter
Yancey Strickler is the co-founder of the Brooklyn-based Kickstarter. Yancey formerly served as Editor in Chief at eMusic, where he created and produced a TV series and founded a record label. His writing has appeared in Pitchfork, Spin, and Entertainment Weekly, among other publications. He received his Bachelors from the College of William & Mary.
Co-founder, Instagram
Kevin Systrom is a co-founder of Instagram, a photo sharing application for the iPhone. He also founded Burbn, an HTML5-based location sharing service. Kevin graduated from Stanford University in 2006 with a BS in Management Science & Engineering. He was an intern at Odeo that later became Twitter. He spent two years at Google, the first working on Gmail, Google Reader, and other products and the latter where he worked on the Corporate Development team.
VP eCommerce, Google
Stephanie is responsible for commerce at Google, including digital content and commerce in the cloud, product search and payments. Prior to joining Google, she was at eBay for nine years, most recently as senior vice president of eBay North America and Global Product. As general manager and vice president of PayPal Merchant Services, Stephanie built PayPal’s platform and business on the web from the ground up to be used on 45 percent of websites today. She also ran eBay Motors and eBay Asia Pacific and Latin America. Previously, Stephanie was a co-founder of PlanetRx.com and worked at Intel, AOL, Firefly and Alex Brown. Stephanie is on the board of IronPlanet.com and the Harvard Business School Research Center. She holds a bachelor’s degree in economics and a master’s in finance from Brandeis, as well as an MBA from Harvard.
Managing Director, TechStars
David is the Managing Director of TechStars in New York City. He is also the Managing Member of Box Group, a New York City based seed-stage angel capital firm. As an investor, advisor or mentor, David has worked with over 40 startups including Boxee, Flavors.me, GroupMe, Goodsie, adStruc, Ignighter, Profitably, CrowdTwist, Singly, StatSheet, OnSwipe, ThinkNear and TroopSwap. Prior to joining TechStars, David served as Executive Vice President of Interactive Strategies at kgb, a diversified global information services company. While at kgb, David founded and lead Knowmore.com, a social aggregation startup within kgb. David has a B.A. in American History from the University of Pennsylvania and a J.D. from New York University School of Law.
Co-founder and CEO, Tagged
Greg Tseng co-founded Tagged in October 2004 and has served as Chief Executive Officer since its inception. He has been a driving force in creating Tagged.com with his partner, co-founder and long-time friend, Johann Schleier-Smith. Greg holds an A.B. in Chemistry & Physics & Mathematics from Harvard University, where he served as a Director of the Harvard Entrepreneurs Club (HEC) from 1998-2000 and co-authored The Harvard Entrepreneurs Club Guide to Starting Your Own Business (Wiley, 1999). Greg is presently on leave from Stanford University, where he is pursuing the Ph.D. in Physics on a National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship. His academic research lies in the field of nanotechnology and he has published his results in top journals such as Science.
Co-founder & Board Observer, WeFi Inc.
Yossi Vardi is an Israeli investor most famous for being the original investor in ICQ – the first Internet-wide instant messaging system. Vardi has invested in over 50 tech companies in diverse areas of software, energy, Internet, mobile, cleantech, and others. Vardi has been an active civil servant in Israel through projects involving energy and infrastructure. He also co-founded Alon, an Israeli oil company. Vardi acted as an advisor to the World Bank and the United Nations Development Program on issues of energy in the developing world. Vardi has received many awards including The Prime Minister Award, The Industry Award, Entrepreneur of the Year (Tel Aviv University), and the CEO!’s Entrepreneurs Hall of Fame from the Collegiate Entrepreneurs’ Organization.
VP of Corporate Development, Skype
Sandhya Venkatachalam is Vice President of Corporate Development at Skype, where she is responsible for business development, including partnerships, investments and M&A. Sandhya has spent her career looking at how to grow technology companies of different sizes through internal innovation as well as partnerships, investments and acquisitions. Prior to Skype, she spent over seven years at Cisco, most recently as Director of Corporate Development, and was responsible for strategy, investments and acquisitions for VoIP, video, mobility, collaboration, Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 technologies. Previously, she worked at Andiamo Systems and JP Morgan, and has a BA from Harvard and an MBA from Wharton.
Founder, Right Media
Investor, Advisor and Founder of start up and expansion stage companies. Formerly Founder, President and CEO of Right Media Inc. Walrath founded Right Media, Inc., (formerly Right Media, LLC) in 2003. He served as CEO until the company’s July 2007 sale to Yahoo. He had a successful career at DoubleClick (and later MaxWorldwide) where he served as Director of direct marketing and Senior Vice President of strategy and development. In 2001, he was responsible for the creation of DoubleClick Direct, its direct marketing offering. He has been a Director of Meteor Games, LLC since December 15, 2010. He served as a Director of Interactive Advertising Bureau Inc. He was awarded the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year® 2007. He holds a B.A. in English from the University of Richmond.
Partner, Union Square Ventures
Fred Wilson began his career in venture capital in 1987. He has focused exclusively on information technology investments for the past 17 years. In 1996, Fred co-founded Flatiron Partners. While at Flatiron, Fred was responsible for 14 investments including, ITXC, Patagon, Starmedia, TheStreet.com and Yoyodyne. Fred currently serves on the boards of Alacra, Comscore, iBiquity, Return Path, Instant Information and Tacoda Systems.
Founder & Managing Director, ACTIVATE
Michael J. Wolf is Founder and Managing Director of ACTIVATE, a technology and strategy consulting firm which helps media, technology and communications businesses position their companies for growth. Headquartered in New York, Michael is joined by Anil Dash who is a partner. Previously, Michael was President and Chief Operating Officer of MTV Networks where he was responsible for leading all of the business, technology and production operations for the $7bn television and interactive media company. He joined MTVN from McKinsey and Co., where he was global managing partner of the Media, Entertainment and Internet practice. Before that, he was a Senior Partner, and member of the board of directors and executive management team at Booz Allen. During his career, he has directed many of transactions, strategic alignments and innovations in the content, communications and technology industries. He is a member of the boards of iAmplify, Entercom Communications and SLIDE. Author of the influential THE ENTERTAINMENT ECONOMY: How Mega Media Forces Are Transforming Our Lives (Random House), Michael, his wife and their three children live in New York.
Co-founder & Head of User Experience, CloudFlare
Michelle is the co-founder and Head of User Experience at CloudFlare, Inc. Michelle creates products people love. Growing up in Canada, she earned a degree in Chemistry and now applies the scientific method to improving businesses. Prior to CloudFlare, she worked at Google and Toshiba, launched two successful startups and got her MBA from Harvard Business School. Michelle holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry and a minor in Management, with Distinction, from McGill University. She also holds her MBA from Harvard Business School and was awarded the Dubliner Prize for Entrepreneurship.
To view previous TechCrunch Disrupt speakers:
Click HERE for San Francisco 2010
Click HERE for New York 2010
If you’d like to recommend someone to join one of our morning executive discussions, please complete a speaker consideration form. We have a limited number of spots available but always appreciate recommendations that align with our content agenda.