Bio
Kevin Efrusy
Kevin joined Accel in 2003. His background is primarily as an entrepreneur and operating executive. He served two stints as an Entrepreneur-In-Residence at Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers where he started Corio, an ASP/SaaS pioneer which went public on Nasdaq and was acquired by IBM in 2005. Later he built and served as the first CEO of IronPlanet, an online marketplace for heavy equipment with current annual gross sales over $500M. Prior to KPCB, Kevin worked at Zip2 and Bain & Company.
Bing Gordon
Bing Gordon joined Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers in 2008. At KPCB, he leads on the sFund, the investment initiative to fund and build applications and services that deliver on the promise of the social web. The sFund, launched in late 2010 with strategic partners Amazon, Facebook, Zynga, Comcast, Liberty Media and Allen & Co, has made 14 investments to date, including 4 seeds. Bing serves on the board of directors of sFund companies Lockerz, Cafebots and Klout; sFund strategics Zynga and Amazon; as well as Zazzle and Mevio. He was also a founding director at ngmoco (acquired by DeNA 2010) and Audible (acquired by Amazon 2008).
Previously, Bing was a long-time exec at Electronic Arts, since its founding in 1982 with initial funding from Kleiner Perkins. He was Chief Creative Officer of Electronic Arts from 1998 to 2008, and previously headed EA marketing and product development. Bing drove EA's branding strategy with EA Sports, EA's pricing strategy for package goods and online games, created EA's studio organization, and contributed to the design and marketing of many EA franchises including John Madden Football, The Sims, Sim City, Need for Speed, Tiger Woods Golf, Club Pogo and Command and Conquer.
Reid Hoffman
Reid Hoffman is co-founder and executive chairman of LinkedIn Corporation and a partner at Greylock Partners. LinkedIn, which he led to profitability as its CEO and chairman, has more than 150 million members in 200 countries and territories around the world. Hoffman serves on several boards including those of Airbnb, Edmodo, Mozilla, and Zynga. Hoffman also leads the Greylock Discovery Fund, which invests in seed-stage entrepreneurs and companies. Prior to LinkedIn and Greylock, he served as executive vice president at PayPal, where he was a founding board member. Hoffman also serves on the boards of Kiva.org, Endeavor.org, DoSomething.org, and StartupAmericaPartnership.org. He co-authored the best-selling book The Startup of You. In 2010, Hoffman was the recipient of an SD Forum Visionary Award and also named a Henry Crown Fellow by the Aspen Institute. In 2011, Hoffman was named an Endeavor Entrepreneur of the Year.
Stephen Jurvetson
Who put the "J" in DFJ? A top venture man, around Silicon Valley, he's like a kid in a candy store, transforming science fiction into fact with such enterprises as NeoPhotonics, SpaceX, and Synthetic Genomics. Steve was the first kid on his block to own a Tesla Model S electric car. Actually, he was the first one in the world: he's on Tesla's board, too. Favorite hobby? Rocketry.
Eric Savitz
Eric Savitz is San Francisco Bureau Chief for Forbes.
Peter Thiel
American entrepreneur, hedge fund manager, and venture capitalist. With Max Levchin, Thiel co-founded PayPal and was its CEO. He currently serves as president of Clarium Capital Management LLC, a global macro hedge fund with more than $6 billion under management, and a managing partner in The Founders Fund, a $275 million under management venture capital fund he launched with Ken Howery and Luke Nosek in 2005. He was an early investor in Facebook, the popular social-networking site, and sits on the company's Board of Directors.
Bruce Upbin
Bruce Upbin is Managing Editor at Forbes Media, responsible for technology and wealth coverage. He joined Forbes as a Reporter in April 1995 and became its Midwest Bureau Chief in 1997, returning to New York in 2000 to manage the teams covering technology and healthcare. In 2006, he became one of the youngest Forbes editors to be named Assistant Managing Editor. He has written and edited dozens of cover stories and regularly provides business commentary on CNN, NPR, CNBC and the BBC. Prior to joining Forbes, Upbin worked as a speechwriter and freelance journalist. He holds a B.A. from Northwestern University and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Arizona. He serves on the board of the Reading Odyssey.