Class Calendar

This year LAAE meets Tuesdays 5pm to 6pm in Anderson Aud.


Tuesday, September 23, 2008

James Hong, HotorNot

 
James Hong
Founder, HotorNot

James Hong is the co-founder of the popular photo rating / casual dating website HOTorNOT. He came up with the idea for HOTorNOT while drinking with fellow co-founder Jim Young in October of 2000. In its first week the site topped 2M daily pageviews, and became an immediate cult hit. With *zero* angel or VC funding and no employees for the first 4 years, HOTorNOT grew quickly into a multi-million dollar subscription business. After operating profitably out of a living room for much of its first eight years, the company was sold in early 2008 to an investment group.
Since the acquisition, James has been taking a break, but also spends some time closely advising a few of his angel investments, including Slide and Mochi Media. James is a graduate of UC Berkeley, where he earned a BS Electrical Engineering & Computer Science and an MBA from the Haas School of Business.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Will Price, CEO Widgetbox

 
Will Price
CEO, Widgetbox

Will moved to Widgetbox from Hummer Winblad Venture Partners in March 2008. Widgetbox enables people to find, make and distribute web widgets for blogging, social networking services, and personal websites.The company provides a platform that supports the creation of simple widgets via a web-based interface ("Blidget") and more complex HTML / JavaScript and Flash-based widgets. Using Widgetbox's AppAccelerator, users can use these widgets to create Facebook, Bebo and OpenSocial applications.
Prior to Widgetbox, Will was a general partner at HWVP, an early stage venture capital firm that was founded in 1989 (investments include TheKnot, Napster, HubPages, Omniture, Powersoft, Hyperion and others).
Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Bambi Francisco, vator.tv

 
Bambi Francisco
Founder and CEO, vator.tv

Vator started as a side project of Bambi?s based off video pitches received in June 2006, while she was a columnist/correspondent at Dow Jones MarketWatch. Launched in June 2007, it is now a leading website for entrepreneurs and VCs to be matched utilizing the visual and social strength of Web 2.0 .

Prior to Vator, Bambi has been extensively involved in covering the entrepreneurial world for large media. At Dow Jones, Bambi covered Internet trends and investments across the public and private sectors. Her newsletters reached a subscriber base of 400,000. Bambi was a morning business anchor for KPIX (the local CBS affiliate in San Francisco), and reported on MarketWatch's business magazine show on CBS. In the 'mid-90s, Bambi worked as producer at CNN's financial news network, where she created, launched and produced business shows, including one on IPOs and new ideas.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Dean Drako, Barracuda

 
Dean Drako
President and CEO, Barracuda

As president and CEO, Dean Drako is responsible for overall corporate strategic direction and product development. Prior to founding Barracuda Networks in 2002, Dean was founder, president and CEO of Velosel Corporation, where he successfully closed two rounds of venture financing. Dean hired his replacement so he could pursue his battle against spam at Barracuda Networks. Prior to Velosel, Dean founded Boldfish, a leading provider of enterprise messaging solutions that was acquired by Siebel Systems in 2003. Before Boldfish, Dean was founder, president and CEO of Design Acceleration, Inc. (DAI), maker of superior design analysis and
verification tools, which was acquired by Cadence Design Systems in 1998. He has served as an entrepreneur in residence for SoftBank Venture Capital as well as vice president of product engineering at the 3DO Company. Dean holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and M.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Ram Shriram, Sherpalo

 
Ram Shriram
, Sherpalo

Kavitark Ram Shriram served as an officer of Amazon.com working for Jeff Bezos, founder & CEO. Ram came to Amazon.com in August, 1998, when Amazon acquired Junglee, an online comparison shopping firm of which Ram was president. While at Amazon, Ram helped grow the customer base during its early high growth phase in 1998/1999. Before Junglee and Amazon, Ram was a member of the Netscape executive team, joining them in 1994, before they shipped products or posted revenue. Kavitark Shriram rank 583 at Forbes worlds list of billionaires 2007. Ram is an MBA graduate of the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business, also Bachelor of Science Degree from University of Madras and a founding board member of Google and 247customer.com. Ram also serves on the boards of Plaxo, Zazzle and PodShow. Ram also serves on the advisory board of Naukri.com, a leading classifieds site in India which has leading marketplaces in jobs, matrimony and real estate serving the Indian market.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Tom Byers, Stanford

 
Tom Byers
Faculty Director, Stanford

Tom Byers is a professor at Stanford University where he focuses on technology entrepreneurship education. He is founder and a faculty director of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program (STVP), which serves as the entrepreneurship center for the engineering school. STVP includes the Mayfield Fellows work/study program, Educators Corner website of teaching resources, and a set of global Roundtable on Entrepreneurship Education conferences. Tom is also a faculty director of the AEA/Stanford Executive Institute, a general management program for technology executives. Tom is co-author of a popular textbook called "Technology Ventures: From Idea to Enterprise" published by McGraw-Hill. Tom also holds visiting professor appointments at the London Business School and University College London.

Tom currently serves on the governing boards of BioFuelBox, Flywheel Ventures, and MyThings. In addition, he serves on advisory councils of the American Society for Engineering Education's Entrepreneurship Division, Harvard Business School's California Research Center, UC Berkeley's Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology, and the National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE) for inner-city youth. Previously, Tom lectured at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley. Tom has a range of business experience including executive vice president of Symantec Corporation and the founding president of Slate Corporation. Tom started his professional career at Accenture.

Tom holds a BS in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research and an MBA from UC Berkeley. He also earned a PhD in Business Administration (Management Science) at UC Berkeley.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Steve Markowitz, Stockton Funds LLC

 
Steve Markowitz
Founder, Mypoints.com

Steve pioneered "loyalty marketing," with first and largest program to reward consumers for interacting with targeted ads and making purchases. He led the company through "hypergrowth" (1996 to 2000) from zero to 16MM consumer members and annual revenues of $64MM. The IPO of MyPoints.com was one of the Top 20 performing IPOs of 1999 and the company subsequently acquired by the venture unit of UAL Corp. (UAL).

Steve is now working on as Chairman of Aquea Scientific Corp., which has developed the world?s first wash-on sunscreen products, and won Popular Science magazine's Grand Award, Personal Health "Best of What's New" (2007) and Health & Beauty America's "Best New Technology" (2006).
Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Mike Horton, Crossbow

 
Mike Horton
President, CEO, and Co-founder, Crossbow

Mike Horton co-founded Crossbow® Technology and has served as its President & CEO since inception. Horton has led Crossbow from its founding product line of digital MEMS accelerometers and tilt sensors to its current market leading inertial sensor and wireless sensor networking platforms. Under his leadership, the company's revenue has grown more than 50 fold and became net profitable in 2002. Horton has closed $25 Million in venture financing for the company, including investments from Cisco Systems and Intel Corporation. He has co-authored four issued patents, and he has co-authored another four pending patents. Horton was named one of the Top 100 Innovators in the MIT Technology Review and was named one of The Top 50 Movers and Shakers in high technology by Electronic Business Magazine. He graduated from UC Berkeley with a B.S. and M.S. in Electrical Engineering.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Shai Agassi, Project BetterPlace

 
Shai Agassi
Founder and CEO, Project Better PLC

Shai Agassi is the founder and CEO of Better PLC, a new infrastructure creator and operator for the management of country-wide electric vehicle fleets. Better PLC works with governments, carmakers, and financial institutes creating a large scale framework for rapid transformation of transport system away from fossil based energy into non-polluting oil free solutions.

Agassi is the former President, Products and Technology Group of SAP AG. He was a member of the Executive Board of SAP AG, from April 2002 through March 2007. Agassi is a serial entrepreneur who started several companies over the years. He founded TopTier Software, a leading enterprise portal vendor that was acquired by SAP in April 2001. In addition, he co-founded Quicksoft Ltd., a leading multimedia software localization and distribution company in the Israeli market; TopManage, a developer of small-business software that was acquired by SAP in April 2002, later renamed SAP Business One, the small-business offering by SAP; and Quicksoft Media, a multimedia production company that ceased operations in 1995.

Agassi is passionate for using technology and capital markets to solve massive social issues. He is an active member of the Young Global Leaders organization (YGL) within the World Economic Forum (WEF) where he focuses his work on topics relating to climate change.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Kristin Goos Richmond, Kirsten Tobey Revolution Foods, Inc.

 
Kristin Groos Richmond
Co-Founder and CEO, Revolution Foods

Kristin Groos Richmond is the co-founder and CEO of Revolution Foods, a company focused on transforming school lunch by providing healthy, fresh, delicious meals and nutrition education to all students. Revolution Foods is improving the health profiles of school communities who serve students with the least amount of access to healthy choices, where oftentimes school breakfast, lunch and snack are the only reliable meals of the day. The communities served by Revolution Foods are also often battling the highest rates of obesity and related disease. Through serving students the highest quality balanced meals and teaching them to engage in healthier decisions, school partners have reported higher attention levels in class, less disciplinary problems, an increased interest in healthy food, and weight loss amongst their students. Revolution Foods has established key strategic partnerships with healthy food suppliers including Whole Foods Market, Organic Valley, Niman Ranch, and local farmers in order to deliver on its promise of all natural, fresh meals for students. Revolution Foods has served over 2 million meals since inception and today works with over 100 education programs in the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles serving close to 25,000 students. These programs include K-12 charter schools, school districts, preschool Head Start programs and after school programs. The company has raised over $11 million to improve health in schools and has plans to expand nationally.

Prior to founding Revolution Foods, Kristin?s career spanned from education reform to corporate finance. She began her career on Wall Street as an investment banker at Citigroup. After spending four years in corporate finance, Kristin moved to Nairobi to co-found the Kenya Community Center for Learning (KCCL), one of the first special education schools in East Africa. Kristin led fundraising and development, operations and finance for KCCL and also taught physical education, geography and life skills. She remains an active board member of KCCL. Kristin also served as a Vice President at RISE, a nonprofit dedicated to recruiting and retaining quality teachers in public schools. While at RISE, Kristin helped schools serving low income students implement strategies to locate, attract and retain the best and brightest teachers. She also played a large role in expanding the organization from the San Francisco Bay Area to Chicago and Los Angeles. Kristin is an Education Pioneers Fellow and has a BS from Boston College and an MBA from UC Berkeley where she serves on the Board of the Global Social Venture Competition.
 
Kirsten Tobey
Co-Founder and COO, Revolution Foods, Inc.

Kirsten Saenz Tobey, Founder and COO, began her career as a teacher and coordinator of experiential education programs at Phillips Academy in Massachusetts as well as with Amigos de las Americas in Ecuador. During college, she ran children?s garden education programs in California and Rhode Island, where she enjoyed helping children to connect with the source of their food. Her passion for sustainability and community health led her to run a public health campaign for Earthjustice. She managed a study abroad program for the School for Field Studies in Mexico where she worked with college students to study the environmental and socioeconomic impacts of the fishing industry. During graduate school, she worked with the United Nations Hunger Task Force to evaluate the scalability of school feeding programs in Ghana and with the McDonald's Corporation to incorporate social and environmental responsibility into the supply chain. Kirsten has an AB from Brown University and an MBA from UC Berkeley.
Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Matt Caspari, Aurora Biofuels

 
Matt Caspari
Co-founder and CEO, Aurora Biofuels


Aurora BioFuels, Inc. is a renewable energy company exploring new sources of feedstock for the production of biofuels. In particular, Aurora utilizes microalgae to generate bio-oil, which can be converted into biodiesel. Matt oversees the company, including its present growth as it looks towards international markets.

Prior to Aurora, Matt was a management consultant with Cambridge Pharma Consultancy, where he provided strategic advice to leading pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. Matt holds an MBA with a Certificate in Entrepreneurship from the University of California, Berkeley's Haas School of Business and a BS in Biochemistry from Georgetown University
Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Mitch Kapor, OSA Foundation

 
Mitch Kapor
President and Chairman, OSA Foundation

The Open Source Applications Foundation is a non-profit organization he founded in 2001 to promote the development and acceptance of high-quality application software developed and distributed using open source methods. He is widely known as founder of Lotus Development Corporation and the designer of Lotus 1-2-3, the "killer application" which made the personal computer ubiquitous in the business world in the 1980's. He has been at the forefront of the information technology revolution for a generation as an entrepreneur, investor, social activist, and philanthropist.