Both Sides of the Table

MAY 27, 2013

He wrote a post this long weekend on how he manages the board of DataSift. In this period (less than 2 years) he has brought on incredibly talented senior execs is sales, marketing, product management, client services, finance, vp engineering and more. Manages board meeting expectations (before & after). You should read it.

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Advisory Board CTO Hire Fractional CTO Los Angeles 365

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 7, 2013

But the founders also recognized – as many great founders do – that they were going to have to build out an experienced management team to become the billion company everybody believes this can be. Another major hire was Ryan Lissack who joined as CTO. Babe Ruth vs. Lance Armstrong.

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Video Los Angeles Technical Cofounder CTO Hire 320

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 23, 2014

And I spoke with the CTO of another great company I used to be on the board of and enlisted his support in potentially being an advisor to one company. That’s only five deep connections to manage per year. I then traded emails with two former senior tech professionals in LA. You have to select carefully.

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Networking CTO Hire Technical Review Email 366

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 11, 2016

That’s why I often say The role of VC is “chief psychologist.” We might help a management team deal with a vexing strategic question or a thorny negotiation but these are mostly tactical. The biggest difference we can make is helping support talented teams with complementary talent.

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Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 22, 2012

My first company was used to manage workflow & share CAD drawings and plans on the $16 billion refurbishment of the London Underground. It was also used as a project management tool & document storage system for the largest private bank in Europe who even stored images of their bank vaults on our servers.

Silicon Valley 390

Silicon Valley Venture Capital Startup Technical Review 390

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 19, 2009

Another called Parker Harris, the co-founder and CTO. The managing partner of the firm called me the next day. After Office 2.0 we had about 25 firms contacting us – more than I could manage. Experienced and serial entrepreneurs in the content management space. Page 2: What’s unique about Koral. Folksonomy.

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Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 22, 2011

A band was saying, “I can’t believe that at one event you could get access to the band managers of Lady Gaga, FooFighters, etc. This time on mysterious party bus to nowhere but situated with the CTO & Cofounder of Living Social, Aaron Batalion. I was listening to NPR on my drive in yesterday morning. I like that idea.

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Technical Cofounder Austin Hosting Cofounder 294

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 25, 2011

We are now attracting serious management talent, having recently brought in the venerable Courtney Holt as the COO. And I’m excited to say that we’ve poached a major technologist from Silicon Valley who will move down to Los Angeles join as CTO in January. More on this soon.

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Silicon Valley Los Angeles Distribution Internet 291

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 28, 2010

Investors: Matrix (Dana Stadler, who was the CTO of PayPal). 15mm in Series A. Read more: TechCrunch. Blippy is a service that allows you to automatically share your credit card transactions as you make them. This includes the place you made the purchase, the amount, and in some cases, the item. Marketo competes with MarketBrite and Eloqua.

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Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 4, 2009

If you’re thinking about joining as the director of marketing, product management manager, senior architect, international business development lead, etc. Or you have to hit the lottery and be an early player middle management player at Google, Facebook, MySpace or Twitter. Let’s face it.

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Both Sides of the Table

MAY 1, 2014

The second is that the retailers were constrained by their high costs of local real estate and service staff relative to the costs of centralized warehouses where goods could be stacked high, sorted by robots, managed by RFIDs and then shipped via overnight to eager, cost-conscious customers across the US.

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Technical Review Software Review Cofounder CTO Hire 380

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 5, 2011

There’s you and your killer CTO co-founder. These kinds of connections seldom emerge from middle management who view the immediate threats more than the long-run benefits. Imagine if the ambassadors from Seattle organized a dinner with 8 entrepreneurs, the CTO of Amazon, the head of Xbox and the head of marketing for Starbucks.

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Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 30, 2013

Most managers spend all of their time controlling information and trying to protect their job by not sharing or not delegating. Then my CTO quit. And the CTO was a super close friend (and former roommate). I had never talked to my CTO about making sure he had no single-points-of-failure on his team – including himself.

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Founder Early Stage Campaign Leadership 372

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 28, 2011

Managing status rivalries, negotiating group dynamics, understanding social norms, navigating the distinction between self and group — these and other social tests impose cognitive demands that blow away any intense tutoring session. You have a part-time lead architect, a part-time developer and a part-time community manager.

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Leadership CTO Hire Technical Review Cofounder 363

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 16, 2016

The CTO, Tor Ivry , heads engineering out of Israel. Computer vision … As input in can capture the world around us and store data that can help us better manage our well-being, our health and our precious moments. His co-founder and COO, Andy Berman , made the smart move from being a young VC to becoming an entrepreneur.

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Jordan CTO Hire Cofounder 150

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 5, 2010

You attend five customer meetings together over a two-week period and after each meeting you replay the results in the office about what it meant. The CEO weighs in with his perspectives, the head of product management disputes his conclusions and the marketing VP has a different take. He downs cold ones with the head of biz dev.

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