Speakers

Speaker Biographies

Jim Barton, Co-Founder, Senior Vice President and CTO, TiVo

At TiVo, Jim sets the technical vision for the company, including TiVo's product, service and partnership roadmaps. In addition to responsibility for all product development, his special area of emphasis is on the software and digital video streaming technologies behind the TiVo Service.

Prior to co-founding TiVo, Jim was President and CEO of Network Age Software, Inc., a company he founded to develop software products targeted at managed electronic distribution. The concepts he developed at Network Age form the foundation of the TiVo Personal TV Service.

Jim began his executive career at SGI, holding a position as Vice President and General Manager of the Systems Software Division, and continued with executive roles in both operational management and R&D organizations within the company. While at SGI, he became the lead system software architect of the Full Service Network in Orlando, Florida, in which he worked to develop the only large-scale interactive television system to be put into operational service. He also served as CTO of Interactive Digital Solutions Company, a joint venture of Silicon Graphics and AT&T Network Systems created to develop interactive television systems.Jim began his executive career at SGI, holding a position as Vice President and General Manager of the Systems Software Division, and continued with executive roles in both operational management and R&D organizations within the company. While at SGI, he became the lead system software architect of the Full Service Network in Orlando, Florida, in which he worked to develop the only large-scale interactive television system to be put into operational service. He also served as CTO of Interactive Digital Solutions Company, a joint venture of Silicon Graphics and AT&T Network Systems created to develop interactive television systems.

Prior to joining SGI, Jim held technical and management positions at Hewlett-Packard and Bell laboratories in the areas of operating system and networking technology and product development. Jim holds a B.S.E.E. and an M.S. in Computer Science from the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Lars Buttler, Vice President, Global Online, Electronic Arts

Dr. Lars Buttler is Vice President Global Online for Electronic Arts (EA). Along with EA’s Online Publishing team he defines EA’s global online product, technology, distribution strategies and operational plans. In cooperation with the Asia Publishing team and the Studio, Lars oversees EA’s entry into Asian markets, with particular focus on China as the number one online gaming opportunity. Lars also leads EA’s Online Studio and the development of Online Games and Online Premium Services.

Before joining EA, Lars was a Vice President at the Carlyle Group, the premier global private equity firm, focusing on investments in the field of Entertainment, Media and Telecommunications. Prior to Carlyle, he was President of Wingcast Europe, a Joint Venture of Ford Motor Company and QUALCOMM, Inc., specializing in wireless entertainment, media and interactive subscription services. Before joining Wingcast, Lars was with the Boston Consulting Group, where he worked in various capacities in the software and interactive media industry.

Lars holds a Ph.D., summa cum laude, in Engineering from Dortmund University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and earned an M.B.A from Harvard Business School.

Mike Cassidy, CEO, Xfire; Founder DirectHit and Stylus Innovation

Mike Cassidy has been the Co-Founder and CEO of three start-ups: Xfire, Direct Hit, and Stylus Innovation. Xfire (www.xfire.com) is the first social networking tool for gamers. Xfire helps gamers play with their friends much more easily. Xfire is also an IM designed just for gamers. Xfire has reached over 500,000 gamers in over 100 countries. Direct Hit was a revolutionary Internet search engine whose customers included MSN, Lycos, AOL, and dozens of others. Ask Jeeves acquired Direct Hit for $500 million. Stylus Innovation's flagship product was the award winning computer telephony software Visual Voice. Mike studied jazz piano at the Berklee College of Music. Mike has a BS ('85) and MS ('86) in Aerospace Engineering from MIT. He graduated from Harvard Business School in 1991.

Matt Cohler, Senior Director of Corporate Development, LinkedIn

Matt Cohler runs corporate development at LinkedIn, the leading online networking tool for white-collar professionals worldwide. Prior to LinkedIn, Matt was a management consultant in McKinsey & Company's Silicon Valley office, advising clients in the enterprise software, hardware, Internet, telecommunications, and venture capital industries on a variety of issues relating to corporate strategy, marketing and pricing, and corporate governance. He has also worked in the telecommunications software and private equity industries in the United States and Asia. Matt's writing on venture capital has been published in Harvard Business Review and cited in the Economist; he holds a BA with honors and distinction from Yale University.

Kevin Efrusy, General Partner, Accel Partners; Founder Corio

Kevin joined Accel in 2003 after 8 years as an executive and consultant to technology startups and large companies. Kevin focuses primarily on software investments--particularly in datacenter infrastructure, application service providers (ASPs) and wireless applications. He currently serves on the Board of BBN Technologies, and is actively involved in Accel's investments in Azul Systems, Topspin Communications, and Riverbed Technology.

Prior to joining Accel, Kevin served as an Entrepreneur in Residence at Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers. At KPCB, Kevin started Corio (Nasdaq: CRIO), the leading ASP managing ERP applications. Corio became publicly traded in Q3 2000 and generates revenues in excess of $50M. He also served as the first President and lead executive of IronPlanet, an internet auctioneer of heavy machinery with >$100M in gross auction sales and strategic investments from Caterpillar, Komatsu, and Volvo. Most recently, Kevin worked closely with the team at Linuxcare to develop and execute a strategy to transition the company from services to server consolidation software. Within 11 months, Linuxcare developed and shipped its first enterprise software product and closed two Fortune 100 customers and a new round of venture funding.

Previously, Kevin worked as a product manager for Zip2, an ASP serving the newspaper industry (purchased by Compaq for $300M in 1998), and served as a strategy consultant for Bain & Company and Monitor Company, focusing on telecommunications and information technology companies.

Kevin holds MSEE (digital communications), BSEE, and BA in Economics degrees from Stanford University, and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he was an Arjay Miller Scholar.

Jean-Louis Gassee, General Partner, Allegis Capital; Founder Be; Former President of Products, Apple Computer

Jean-Louis Gassée joined Allegis Capital as a partner in April 2003, bringing more than 30 years of high-technology experience to the firm. Prior to this, he headed up Be, Inc., which developed the Be operating system (Be OS) to provide multimedia software for appliances to deliver information, entertainment and interactivity over the Web.

Jean-Louis spent nine years at Apple Computer. In February 1981, he started Apple's French subsidiary and, in 1982, was also named president of the "Apple Education" foundation. Apple France became Apple's largest business unit outside of the United States. In 1985, Jean-Louis was transferred to Apple headquarters to lead Apple's Product Development. He was also president of the Apple Products Division, responsible for managing all of Apple's global product functions, including product marketing, worldwide manufacturing, and research and development.

Before joining Apple, Jean-Louis was president and general manager of the French subsidiary of Exxon Office Systems. He also held several general management positions with Data General--including general manager for France, area manager for Latin and Middle-East countries, and marketing director for Europe. Jean-Louis also worked six years at Hewlett-Packard where he was responsible for overseeing the launching of the company's first desktop scientific computer and the development of its sales organization in France, before his promotion to sales manager of Europe.

Jean-Louis serves as a director of several publicly traded companies, including 3Com, Electronics for Imaging, and Logitech. He graduated with bachelor's degree from Orsay University in France.

Diane Greene, Executive Vice President, EMC; Founder and President VMWare

Diane Greene is Executive Vice President of EMC Corporation and President of VMware. VMware is the global leader in virtual infrastructure software for Intel-based systems and an EMC company based in Palo Alto, California. With 2003 revenues of $6.24 billion, and more than 20,000 employees worldwide, EMC is the world leader in products, services and solutions for information storage and management that help organizations extract the maximum value from their information, at the lowest total cost, across every point in the information lifecycle.

A founder of VMware, Greene has led VMware since its inception in 1998 and has continued in her role since EMC acquired the company in January 2004. Under Greene's direction, VMware has pioneered the market for Intel-based virtualization software and has firmly established itself as the global leader in virtual infrastructure technology with more than 5,000 corporate customers worldwide, including 80 percent of the Fortune 100. The world's largest companies use VMware solutions to simplify their information technology, fully leverage their existing computing investments and respond faster to changing business demands.

Greene has more than 20 years of experience in the technology industry, including technical leadership positions at Silicon Graphics, Tandem, and Sybase and as Chief Executive Officer of VXtreme. She holds a master's degree in computer science from the University of California at Berkeley, a master’s degree in naval architecture from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Vermont.

Guy Kawasaki, Founder, Managing Director and Chairman, Garage Technology Ventures; Former Apple Fellow, Apple Computer

Guy Kawasaki is a founder of Garage Technology Ventures. Currently, Guy is a Managing Director and Chairman of Garage. Prior to this position, he was an Apple Fellow at Apple Computer, Inc. A noted speaker and the founder of various personal computer companies, Guy was one of the individuals responsible for the success of the Macintosh computer. He is also the author of seven books including Rules for Revolutionaries, How to Drive Your Competition Crazy, Selling the Dream, and The Macintosh Way. Guy holds a B.A. from Stanford University and a M.B.A. from UCLA, as well as an honorary doctorate from Babson College.

Doug Leone, General Partner, Sequoia Capital

Douglas Leone focuses on investments in the software and systems sectors. He is a Director of Agitar, Aruba, inCode, Metreo, Nth Orbit, RouteScience and VA Software (LNUX). Doug is also responsible for Sequoia Capital's investment in Rackspace. Previously, he had been a Director of Abrizio (acquired by PMC-Sierra, PMCS), Assured Access (acquired by Alcatel), RightWorks (acquired by i2), Sentient Networks (acquired by Cisco, CSCO), Hyperion (HYSL) (previously named Arbor Software), International Network Services (acquired by Lucent, LU), Infinity International (acquired by Sungard, SDS), Scient (SCNT), Rhapsody (acquired by Brocade, BRCD), as well as the Chairman of Shomiti (acquired by Finisar Corporation). Before joining Sequoia Capital in 1988, Doug held sales and sales management positions at Sun Microsystems, Hewlett-Packard and Prime Computer. He holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Cornell University, an M.S. in Industrial Engineering from Columbia University, and an M.S. in Management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Mehdi Maghsoodnia, Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Mohr, Davidow Ventures; Former Senior Vice President, Products, Pumatech; Co-Founder and Former Senior Vice President and CTO FaceTime Communications

Mr. Mehdi Maghsoodnia is a veteran of the high tech industry with over 15 years of experience in executive management. He is currently the Senior Vice President of products at Pumatech (NasdaqNM: PUMA), which is a publicly traded Company with a market cap of $500M. Prior to Pumatech, Mr. Maghsoodnia was the Chief Operations Officer at FaceTime Communications, which is the leading provider of secure messaging solutions to the financial markets. Mr. Maghsoodnia is currently a member of the Board of Directors of FaceTime Communications.

Prior to FaceTime, Mr. Maghsoodnia held various positions with Persidio Systems, sphereLink Corporation, Metaphor Communications and AT&T.

Mr. Maghsoodnia is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and has numerous publications in the area of messaging, security and communication. Mr. Maghsoodnia holds a Bachelor degree from University of California Berkeley and has done graduate level studies at Stanford University.

Talat Sadiq, Vice President Strategic Business Development, iSpheres; Former CIO, NextCard; Former Vice President Field Technical Operations and Strategic Alliances, Sun Microsystems

Prior to joining iSpheres, Talat was Chief Information Officer (CIO) at Nextcard, one of the largest issuers of credit cards on the Internet. Earlier, he spent 8 years at Sun Microsystems as Vice President of Field Technical Operations and Strategic Alliances. While at Sun, Talat ran Global Systems Engineering and sales partnerships with companies such as Oracle, SAP, and Sybase, and systems integrators like Accenture and KPMG. Previous to Sun, Talat was the regional CIO and Vice President of Global Trading Systems for Citicorp Investment Bank where he standardized and built risk management platforms for the bank's dealing rooms. He spent 6 years on Wall Street with Monchik-Weber, which was eventually acquired by McGraw-Hill where Talat became CIO. Talat has a Bachelor degree in Electrical Engineering from Cornell University.

Ram Shriram, Founder and Managing Partner, Sherpalo Ventures; Board Member, Google and Plaxo

Ram Shriram started Sherpalo in January, 2000, with the goal of applying his wealth of operating and company building experience to promising early stage ventures. As a technology industry insider for over 25 years he has worked in companies large and small across all functional areas and through fluctuating business cycles. He is always eager to roll up his sleeves and work closely with founding teams on the challenging issues that confront and sometimes confound early stage ventures.

Immediately prior to founding Sherpalo, Ram 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. He drove the many partnerships and channels that Netscape employed to get massive distribution for its browser and server products during those now legendary early days of the Internet.

Felice Swapp, Director of Strategic Initiatives, Hewlett Packard

Felice Swapp is responsible for developing three to five year technology roadmaps around rich digital media, including content distribution, content management, rights management and streaming media; mobility and security These roadmaps will be the basis for decision making around long-term business directions, partnerships and investments for the company.

Prior to this, Swapp was a Corporate Strategy Director in the Office of Strategy and Technology at Compaq Computer Corporation. While at Compaq, Swapp performed strategy, business development and marketing roles and worked on projects in Asia, EMEA and the Americas.

Prior to Compaq, Swapp was a consultant with McKinsey and Company working on strategy, marketing and operations engagements with various firms.

Swapp holds a bachelor of science degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a masters degree in management from the University of Oxford which she attended as a Rhodes Scholar.

Gus Tai, General Partner, Trinity Ventures; Chairman, CSPA

Gus has over ten years of operational and investment experience in technology. Prior to joining Trinity in 1996, he worked at Bain & Company as a consultant to technology firms on new product development and business strategy. Gus joined Bain from DEC's Alpha Microprocessor Division, where he was an engineering and business development manager. He started his career at Goldman Sachs.

Gus is on the Board of Directors of the MIT Club of Northern California and the Chinese Software Professionals Association.

Selina Tobaccowala, Vice President, Online Product and Technology Entertainment.com; Founder and Former Vice President, Engineering, Evite.com

Selina Tobaccowala is Vice President - Online Product and Technology, Entertainment Publications. In this position since March 2003, Tobaccowala leads the company's online and technology initiatives. Her responsibilities include managing the growth of Entertainment's web sites (entertainment.com, SallyFoster.com) and development of new electronic discounting products and web tools.

Prior to joining Entertainment, Tobaccowala founded Evite.com, an online invitation service that currently sends over three million invitations a month. As vice president of engineering for Evite.com, she led the company's development and operations and played a key role in setting the strategic direction with the board of directors. In 2001, Evite.com was sold to Ticketmaster. Tobaccowala managed the transition then took on the role of senior director of product and technology for CRM (customer relationship management) for Ticketmaster.

Tobaccowala holds a bachelor of science degree in computer science from Stanford University. She splits her time between Los Angeles, Calif., and Entertainment's Troy, Mich. headquarters.

Andy Yan, President and Executive Managing Director, SOFTBANK Asia Infrastructure Fund

Andrew Y. Yan is the President and Executive Managing Director of Softbank Asia Infrastructure Fund (SAIF), the US$1.05 billion venture capital fund that focus on IT infrastructure sectors in Asia Pacific region. Born in the Peoples’ Republic of China, Mr. Yan received his Bachelor Degree of Engineering at Nanjin Aeronautic Institute with distinction in 1982 and was Chief Engineer at the Jianghuai Airplane Corp. from 1982 to 1984. He received a Master of Arts in Sociology & Economics from Beijing University in 1986 and received the Top Honorary Prize for his thesis. From 1984 to 1986 Mr. Yan worked as a Research Fellow at the State Commission for Economic Restructuring of the State Council of China. During 1987-1991, he studied at Princeton University in the US, where he held a four-year University Scholarship and worked toward Ph.D in International Political Economy. He received his Master of Arts degree from Princeton University in 1989. In 1996, he studied International Finance at the Wharton School Executive MBA Program. From 1989 to 1990, he worked at the Policy, Planning, and Research Division of the World Bank on several major projects on the reform of Chinese enterprise and welfare systems. From 1991 to 1994, Mr. Yan was a Research Fellow with the prestigious Hudson Institute in Washington, D. C., where his research covered the US foreign policy issues on China, Japan and Korea. From 1994 to 1995, Mr. Yan worked at Sprint International Corporation as the Director for Strategic Planning and Business Development for the Asia Pacific region. Mr. Yan worked during February 1995 to October 2001 before he joint SAIF as a Managing Director and the Head of Hong Kong Office for Emerging Markets Partnership, the Principle Advisor to the US$2.7 billion of AIG Asian Infrastructure Funds. Mr. Yan’s many honors include the University Scholarship, Mellon Prize and University Honorific Scholarship from Princeton University, 1989 and 1990 respectively; the Top Honorary Prize from Beijing Universty, 1985. Mr. Yan contributed to numerous books and articles relating to economic and political development in China, Taiwan, Japan, and Korea. His book “Trial after Triumph: East Asia after the Cold War” (1992) had a significant impact on the foreign policy research circle in the United States. Mr. Yan is currently a governor of the Chinese Venture Capital Association. He is also an independent director of China National Offshore Oil Service Corporation and Stone Electrics (both listed at Hong Kong Stock Exchange). He is also a member of the board of directors of Asian Netcom Corp., Bocom Digital, Mobi Antenna, and Shanda Network Media, and Mobile Digital Corporation. Mr. Yan is a US citizen and married with one daughter.

Jack Xu, Chairman, eBay (China) Engineering & Research Center; Former CTO, NetEase

Jack Xu is Senior Director of Product Development at eBay, and Chairman of eBay (China) Engineering & Research Center. Prior to this position, Jack was the CTO and member of Executive Committee at NetEase, a leading portal in China, where he was responsible for the company's overall operations, engineering and business development. Jack was instrumental in taking Netease public in 2000 (Nasdaq: NTES) and building it into one of the most profitable companies.

Before joining Netease, Jack was Director of Core Technology at Excite (from 1996 to 2000) where he was responsible for overseeing the search engine development and operations. Jack holds Master and Bachelor degrees from Zhongshan University, and PhD candidacy in information retrieval from the University of California at Berkeley.