Expert Panelists
Meet the seventeen members of our advisory panel.
Chris Anderson Chris Anderson is editor-in-chief of Wired Magazine and author of The Long Tail. Chris is also a former U.S. Business Editor at The Economist, where he served as Asia Business Editor (based in Hong Kong) and Technology Editor. He is an officer of the Young Presidents' Association and a regular speaker and participant at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Chris Anderson is a panelist for:
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Marc Andreessen Marc Andreessen is the co-founder of Ning, a consumer internet company. He also serves on the board of Open Media Network. Marc is best known as a co-founder and chief technical mind behind Netscape Communications Corporation and co-author of Mosaic, the first widely-used web browser. Marc Andreessen is a panelist for:
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Ryan Block Ryan Block is editor-in-chief of Engadget a web magazine covering consumer electronics and technology. In addition to appearing to speak at Engadget events and co-hosting a weekly podcast, he is also a contributor and a founding editor of Joystiq, and a technology critic and commentator who has been quoted in Business Week, the New York Times, the Wall St. Journal. Ryan also maintains an active personal blog. Ryan Block is a panelist for:
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Roelof Botha Roelof Botha is a partner at Sequoia Capital focused on services and software investments. Prior to joining Sequoia Capital in 2003, Roelof served as the Chief Financial Officer of PayPal (EBAY) and worked as a management consultant with McKinsey & Company. Roelof is a certified actuary (Fellow of the Faculty of Actuaries), and has a BS in Actuarial Science, Economics, and Statistics from the University of Cape Town and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Roelof Botha is a panelist for:
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Ron Conway Ron Conway is one of the Internet's pre-eminent angel investors. He was the Founder and Managing Partner of the Angel Investors LP funds whose investments included: Google, Ask Jeeves, Paypal, Red Envelope, Good Technology, Opsware, and Brightmail. Ron was named #6 in Forbes Magazine Midas list of top "dealmakers" in 2006. He is an active advisor for a number of Internet companies and also very active in community and philanthropic activities, including Vice Chairman of UCSF Medical Foundation in San Francisco. Most recently, Ron has been leading the "Fight for Mike" Homer and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD.) Ron Conway is a panelist for:
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Mark Cuban Mark Cuban is the co-founder of Wagner/Cuban Companies, a vertically-integrated group of media properties co-owned by Todd Wagner and Mark Cuban that also includes Magnolia Pictures, Magnolia Home Entertainment, HDNet Films, 2929 Productions, HDNet and HDNet Movies. He is best known as the creator of computer consulting business Micro Solutions, and cofounder of Broadcast.com, as well as the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, an NBA franchise. Mark posts frequently at Blog Maverick. Mark Cuban is a panelist for:
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Don Dodge Don Dodge is a veteran of five start-ups including Forte Software, AltaVista, Napster, Bowstreet, and Groove Networks. Don is currently Director of Business Development for Microsoft's Emerging Business Team. The goal is to help VC's and start-ups be successful with Microsoft, and together, provide great products for our customers. He writes a daily blog, Don Dodge on the Next Big Thing. Don Dodge is a panelist for:
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Esther Dyson Esther Dyson is an active investor and current director of a number of internet start-ups, including Meetup, Boxbe, Eventful, 23andMe,WPP Group and Yandex. She was a previous investor in Flickr (sold to Yahoo!), Medstory (sold to Microsoft), Brightmail (sold to Symantec) and Postini (being sold to Google), among others. In addition to internet-related investments, Esther is an active investor in the aerospace sector, including Zero-G, Space Adventures, Constellation Services, Icon Aircraft and XCOR Aerospace. She is the author of Release 2.0, a book which discussed the effects of computing and the Internet on our business and social lives. Esther's personal blog is EDventure. (Photo: Rick Smolan) Esther Dyson is a panelist for:
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Caterina Fake Caterina Fake is an American businesswoman and entrepreneur. She is best known as the co-founder of Flickr, a photo-sharing service, and a previous Art Director at Salon.com. She has won many awards, including Business Week's Best Leaders of 2005, Forbes 2005 eGang, Fast Company's Fast 50, and Red Herring's 20 Entrepreneurs under 35 and the Time 100, Time Magazine's list of the world's 100 most influential people. She sits on the board of Etsy and advises many startups. At Yahoo! Caterina runs strategy for Brickhouse, known for its Hack Yahoo! program, a stimulus to innovation and creativity. Caterina Fake is a panelist for:
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Brad Garlinghouse Brad Garlinghouse is SVP, Communications & Communities at Yahoo!, which includes the world's most popular webmail product, Yahoo! Mail, Messenger and Groups. During his tenure, Brad has also overseen the primary starting points to the Yahoo! network, including Yahoo.com and My Yahoo! Brad is the author of the infamous Peanut Butter Manifesto, which received significant press for his vision for Yahoo! to realize its full potential. Prior to joining Yahoo!, Brad served as CEO of Dialpad Communications. Earlier in his career, Brad led VC investments in communications and Internet businesses at @Ventures. He also spent time in leadership roles at @Home Network and SBC Communications. Brad Garlinghouse is a panelist for:
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MC Hammer MC Hammer is an American MC who brought rap music to a mass pop audience during the late 1980s and early 1990s, selling millions of copies of his chart topping albums. He is known for his important influence on hip hop culture and music. Following the September 11, 2001 attacks, Hammer released the patriotic album Active Duty on his own WorldHit label and donated portions of the proceeds to 9/11 charities. MC Hammer has a television show on the Trinity Broadcasting Network. Hammer is an advisor to stealth Internet start-up Dance Jam. MC Hammer is a panelist for:
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Guy Kawasaki Guy Kawasaki is CEO of early-stage venture capital firm Garage Technology Ventures and an active blogger. Guy was an Apple Fellow at Apple Computer, CEO of ACIUS and founder of Fog City Software. Guy has written eight books, including The Art of the Start. He sits on the board of BitPass, FilmLoop and SimplyHired. His most recent venture is launching Truemors, a site dedicated to democraticizing information by encouraging everday people to post news. Guy Kawasaki is a panelist for:
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Sarah Lacy Sarah Lacy has been covering start-ups and venture capital in Silicon Valley for the last seven years. She has been a contributor to the San Jose Business Journal. Most recently, Sarah was a reporter and blogger for Business Week. She co-wrote last year's famous magazine cover story on Digg's founder Kevin Rose titled "How This Kid Made $60 Million In 18 Months." She is currently taking a year off from reporting to work on a book covering Web 2.0. Sarah Lacy is a panelist for:
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Loïc Le Meur Loïc Le Meur is a well-known French serial entrepreneur who has created and sold multiple Internet startups, including B2L (sold to BBDO), RapidSite France (sold to France Telecom), Tekora (sold to Access-Commerce) and Ublog (merged with Six Apart.) Working on his next venture, Loïc continues to be an active investor. He organizes Europe's largest annual web event, LeWeb3, that gathered 1300 participants from 37 Countries in 2006. Loïc's blog is one of the most popular in France, read by more than 250,000 unique visitors per month. Loïc Le Meur is a panelist for:
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Om Malik Om Malik is the founder of Giga Omni Media, Inc. and executive editor for the technology blog GigaOM. Before founding GigaOm, he was a senior writer for Business 2.0 magazine in San Francisco, focusing on the broadband and telecommunications sector. Previously, Om was a senior writer at Red Herring and Forbes. Additionally, he is the co-founder of the South Asian Journalists Association (SAJA) and DesiParty.com, an events site for Indian emigrants. Om Malik is a panelist for:
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Marissa Mayer Marissa Mayer is VP, Search Products & User Experience at Google. She joined Google in 1999 as Google's first female engineer. Her efforts have included designing and developing Google's search interface, internationalizing the site to 100+ languages and launching numerous features and products. Several patents have been filed on her work in artificial intelligence and interface design. Before Google, she worked at UBS research lab (Ubilab) and SRI International. Marissa has been featured in various publications, including Newsweek ("10 Tech Leaders of the Future"), Red Herring ("15 Women to Watch"), Business 2.0, BusinessWeek, Fortune and Fast Company. Marissa Mayer is a panelist for:
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Rajeev Motwani Rajeev Motwani is a professor of computer science at Stanford University, where he also serves as the director of graduate studies. His research interests include: databases and data mining, web search and information retrieval, robotics, and theoretical computer science. He has written several books including Randomized Algorithms, published by Cambridge University Press. Motwani has received the Godel Prize, the Arthur P. Sloan Research Fellowship, the National Young Investigator Award from the National Science Foundation, the Bergmann Memorial Award from the US-Israel Binational Science Foundation and an IBM Faculty Award. Rajeev Motwani is a panelist for:
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Yossi Vardi Yossi Vardi is one if Israel's hi-tech veterans, having helped build some 40 hi-tech companies in Internet, software, telecommunications, electro-optics, energy, environment and other areas. Several companies Dr. Vardi co-founded became successful public companies, among them Alon, Advanced Technologies, and Granite Hacarmel. Internet companies backed by Dr. Vardi include Mirabilis Ltd, ICQ (acquired by AOL), Gteko (acquired by Microsoft), Scopus and Answers.com. He is a member of the World Economic Forum, on the board of Amdocs, and the advisory board of 3i. He has served as an advisor to the World Bank and the United Nations Development Program. Yossi Vardi is a panelist for:
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