Bio
Marc Andreessen
Marc Andreessen is an innovator and creator, one of the few to pioneer a software category used by more than a billion people and one of the few to establish multiple billion-dollar companies. Andreessen co-created the highly influential Mosaic Internet browser and cofounded Netscape, which later sold to AOL for $4.2 billion. He also cofounded Loudcloud, which as Opsware sold to Hewlett-Packard for $1.6 billion. He is now a founder and general partner of Andreessen Horowitz, a stage-agnostic venture capital firm that provides seed, venture, and growth-stage funding to technology companies. Andreessen Horowitz has $2.7 billion under management across three funds, with portfolio holdings that include Box, Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Tidemark, and Zynga. Andreessen serves on the boards of Bump, eBay, Facebook, Glam Media, Hewlett-Packard, Kno, Mixed Media Labs, RockMelt, Skype, Stanford Hospital, and TinyCo.
Steve Blank
Steve Blank is a Silicon Valley-based retired serial entrepreneur, founding and/or part of 8 startup companies in California's Silicon Valley. A prolific educator, thought leader and writer on Customer Development for Startups, Blank teaches, refines, writes and blogs on "Customer Development," a rigorous methodology he developed to bring the "scientific method" to the typically chaotic, seemingly disorganized startup process.
Leah Busque
Leah Busque is the founder and chief executive officer of TaskRabbit.com, an online marketplace where you can outsource small jobs and Tasks to others in your own community. TaskRabbit is the pioneer in "service networking" - a concept Leah conceived and has since evangelized. Now an industry-wide concept, service networking describes the productive power of a web-based, social-networked community.
Aneesh Chopra
Aneesh Chopra is the United States Chief Technology Officer and in this role serves as an Assistant to the President and Associate Director for Technology within the Office of Science & Technology Policy. He works to advance the President’s technology agenda by fostering new ideas and encouraging government-wide coordination to help the country meet its goals from job creation, to reducing health care costs, to protecting the homeland. He was sworn in on May 22nd, 2009. Prior to his appointment, he served as Secretary of Technology for the Commonwealth of Virginia from January 2006 until April 2009. He previously served as Managing Director with the Advisory Board Company, a publicly-traded healthcare think tank. Chopra was named to Government Technology magazine’s Top 25 in their Doers, Dreamers, and Drivers issue in 2008. Aneesh Chopra received his B.A. from The Johns Hopkins University and his M.P.P. from Harvard’s Kennedy School.
Beth Comstock
Beth Comstock leads GE's growth and market-innovation initiatives, as well as the sales, marketing and communications functions. She is responsible for GE-wide business platforms ecomagination, dedicated to environmental innovation and healthymagination, focused on developing better health outcomes.
Previously she served as President of Integrated Media at NBC Universal where she oversaw ad sales, marketing and research, and 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 introducing the ecomagination platform, as well as a new innovation pipeline and the "imagination at work" brand campaign.
Comstock held a succession of roles at GE, NBC, CBS and Turner Broadcasting. She is a member of Nike's Board of Directors and Trustee president of the Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. Comstock is a graduate of the College of William and Mary.
Scott Cook
Scott Cook is founder and chairman of the executive committee at Intuit.
Before founding Intuit, Cook managed consulting assignments in banking and technology for Bain & Company, a corporate strategy consulting firm. He previously worked for Procter & Gamble, the household products giant, in various marketing positions, including brand manager, for four years.
Cook is a member of the board of directors of eBay; Procter & Gamble; the Asia Foundation; the Harvard Business School Dean's Advisory Board; the Center for Brand and Product Management at the University of Wisconsin; and the Intuit Scholarship Foundation.
Cook earned an MBA from Harvard University and received a bachelor's degree in economics and mathematics from the University of Southern California.
Todd Park
Todd Park is the United States Chief Technology Officer and in this role serves as an Assistant to the President. Todd joined the Administration in August 2009 as Chief Technology Officer of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). In this role, he served as a change agent and “entrepreneur-in-residence,� helping HHS harness the power of data, technology, and innovation to improve the health of the nation.
Prior to joining HHS, Mr. Park co-founded Athenahealth and co-led its development into one of the most innovative health IT companies in the industry. He also co-founded Castlight, a web-based health care shopping service for consumers. Mr. Park has also served in a volunteer capacity as a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress, where he focused on health IT and health reform policy, and as senior health care advisor to Ashoka, a leading global incubator of social entrepreneurs, where he helped start Healthpoint Services, a venture to bring affordable telehealth, drugs, diagnostics, and clean water to rural India. Mr. Park graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard College with an A.B. in economics.
Eric Ries
Eric Ries is an entrepreneur and author of the popular blog Startup Lessons Learned. His book The Lean Startup, published last fall, is a New York Times and Wall Street Journal best seller. Ries has himself started three companies, including the 3D social network IMVU, where he served as chief technical officer. He is an entrepreneur-in-residence at Harvard Business School and has advised startups, large companies, and venture capital firms on business and product strategy.
