Startup Grind

Ulf Gunnar Ekberg (born 6 December 1970), also known as Buddha, is a Swedish singer-songwriter, musician, businessman and television and film producer, best known as a founding member of the pop group Ace of Base, along with siblings Jonas Berggren, Linn Berggren and Jenny Berggren.

A respected technologist and business leader, Steven Sinofsky is an investor, adviser, as well as a Board Partner at the Andreessen Horowitz venture capital firm. He began his career at Microsoft in 1989. He started as a software design engineer in development tools. Working in product management, he grew to be one of the company's senior executives on Microsoft Office overseeing six major releases of the full range of Office apps and creation of Office servers. Most recently he served as President of the Windows division through 2012, delivering two major releases of Windows as well as the creation of Microsoft Surface, and Windows Services such as Outlook.com, OneDrive and Identity. Sinofsky frequently comments on products, development and management at his blog, https://medium.learningbyshipping.com, and on twitter, @stevesi. He earned a BA in both computer science and chemistry from Cornell and an MS from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Aaron Levie is the Co-founder of cloud-based content manage

Maggie Zhou was appointed Managing Director for Australia and New Zealand in March 2016 for Alibaba Group. As one of the key veterans of the company, Maggie has witnessed major company developments as the company has expanded its businesses outside of China and as well as the progression and development of Mainland China’s e-commerce market. In her current role, as part of the company’s globalisation strategy, she is responsible for establishing a local presence for Alibaba in Australia and New Zealand to further develop infrastructure and help local merchants enter the vast China consumer market.Prior to this role, Maggie worked closely with the Australia and New Zealand business development team on Tmall Global, a cross-border B2C business platform for Tmall, and was in charge of overall government and public affairs for the platform. In Maggie’s earlier days with Alibaba, she helped the Group establish Taobao Marketplace in 2003 as one of the nine founders of the C2C platform, and served as Executive Assis

Prior to founding Zoom, Eric was Corporate Vice President of Engineering at Cisco, where he was responsible for Cisco's collaboration software development. As one of the founding engineers and Vice President of Engineering at WebEx, Eric was the heart and soul of the WebEx product from 1997 to 2011. Eric proudly grew the WebEx team from 10 engineers to more than 800 worldwide, and contributed to revenue growth from $0 to more than $800M. Eric is a named inventor on 11 issued and 20 pending patents in real time collaboration.Eric is a graduate of the Stanford University Executive Program.Jim has achieved 5 ‘unicorn’-level successes over the past 20 years as a founder, executive, and investor. His top performers include Zoom ($1B valuation), Cruise ($1B sale to GM), Bebo ($850M sale to AOL), Tango ($1B+ valuation), and NBCi ($6B IPO), plus several other exits including the recent acquisition of Check by Intuit for $360M. Jim is one of the leading growth experts in Silicon Valley, a TED speaker, and a frequent p

Anjelika Temple is the Chief Creative Officer + Founding Partner at Brit + Co where she is responsible for the visual identity of the brand across the company. As Brit + Co's first hire, Anjelika created the company’s distinct aesthetic and currently oversees the creative, editorial, and video teams to scale her vision.Lindsey Quinn is a writer in the Bay Area focused on the intersection of tech, business, and culture. Formerly, she was Managing Editor of The Hustle, a business newsletter and blog with over 1 million daily subscribers.

Melanie Perkins is an Australian technology entrepreneur. She is known as the CEO and co-founder of Canva, an online design and publishing tool which makes graphic design simple for everyone.Melanie is one of the youngest female CEO to be leading a tech start-up valued at over a billion dollars. Melanie has raised more than $166 million from investors including Google Maps co-founder Lars Rasmussen, Yahoo! CFO Ken Goldman, and funds such as Bond, General Catalyst, Felicis Ventures and Blackbird. 

As Google’s Chief Marketing Officer, Lorraine manages a global team responsible for telling the evolving story of Google’s brand, driving revenue growth, and bringing Google’s products to life for billions of users every day. Her teams focus on Google’s core products, including Search, Maps, Photos and the Google Assistant; Google’s Platforms, such as Android, Chrome, Play and YouTube, and support the company's new Hardware division. Lorraine was responsible for driving Google’s social impact focus on education, economic opportunity and inclusion, and for the company crisis response strategy. Previously, Lorraine led Marketing for Google in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Lorraine graduated from Dublin City University with a joint honors degree in International Marketing and Languages. She has been named Adweek’s Grand Brand Genius, Business Insider's Most Innovative CMO, one of the world’s 50 Most Powerful Moms, and most recently Cannes Creative Marketer of the Year. A native of Ireland, Lorraine lives i

Tony and Maureen Wheeler’s six-month trip along the ‘Hippie Trail’ in 1972 led to Across Asia on the Cheap, the very first Lonely Planet guidebook. The company grew to become the world’s largest independent guidebook publisher and today has close to 150 million books in print in English as well as digital versions and a busy website. Despite the completion of the sale of the company in 2011 Tony still contributes to their publications, most recently Epic Drives and the new edition of The Cities Book. The Planet Wheeler Foundation, with more than 50 health and education projects in the developing world, the Wheeler Centre for Books, Writing & Ideas in Melbourne and his position on the board of the California-based archaeological organization Global Heritage Fund also keep him busy. Recent travels have included visits to the rising-sea-level-threatened Pacific nation of Kiribati, Reactor 4 at Chernobyl 30 years after its meltdown and a reprise of his Hippie Trail adventures along the Silk Road, now part of

Mathilde Collin is the co-founder and CEO of Front, the first shared inbox for teams. Front serves more than 4,000 companies around the world and has raised $79 million in venture funding from investors such as Sequoia Capital, DFJ, and Uncork Capital.Mathilde was recognized in 2017 Forbes 30 Under 30 Enterprise Tech list and 2018 Inc’s 30 Under 30 Rising Star list. She is based in San Francisco and originally from Paris, and earned her Masters in Entrepreneurship from the HEC School of Management in 2012.Bryan Schreier is a Partner at Sequoia, where he works with consumer and enterprise companies. He is a Director of Clever, Domino Data, Dropbox, Front, Hearsay Systems, Qualtrics, Thumbtack, TuneIn, and Zūm, among others.Startup Grind Global Conference 2019

Startup Grind Global Conference 2019About the speakers:John, and his brother Patrick Collison, started Stripe, the global technology company building the economic infrastructure for the internet, in 2010 while John was studying physics at Harvard. Their goal was to make accepting payments online simpler and more inclusive, after learning firsthand how difficult it was. Today, the 1200-person (and growing) Stripe team powers online businesses around the world. Prior to Stripe, John co-founded Auctomatic, which was acquired by Live Current Media in March 2008. Originally from Limerick, Ireland, John lives in San Francisco, California, where Stripe is based.Ashlee Vance is a reporter for Bloomberg Businessweek magazine. He's written dozens of cover and feature stories and hosts the Emmy-nominated TV show "Hello World." Vance is also an author and wrote the recent best-selling biography on Elon Musk.GLOBAL CONFERENCE: https://www.startupgrind.com/conference/READ THE BLOG: https://medium.com/startup-grindTWITTER:

Adora Cheung was co-founder and CEO of Homejoy, which was funded by Y Combinator in 2010. Before that, she ran product at Slide. She has a bachelor's in computer science from Clemson University and is an economics PhD dropout at the University of Rochester.Holly is a Visiting Partner at Y Combinator. Prior to this she founded and exited the billion-dollar mobile gaming company Kabam - building games for IP such as The Hobbit and Marvel. She led design for their flagship game, and moved into growing culture and talent to over 1500 people.

About the speakers: Joe Gebbia is the co-founder and CPO of Airbnb, serving on the Board of Directors and Executive staff, while leading Samara, Airbnb’s in-house design and innovation studio. He is involved in crafting the company culture, shaping the design aesthetic, and innovating future growth opportunities. Alfred Lin is a Partner at Sequoia Capital and works with inspiring founders focused on disrupting the mobile, marketplace, commerce, consumer services, and online-to-offline sectors. He currently represents Sequoia on the Boards of Airbnb, Cobalt Robotics, Dia & Co., DoorDash, Houzz, Stella & Dot, and Zipline and was previously on the Board of Achievers (HAWK), FutureAdvisor (BLK), Humble Bundle (JCOM), and Shopular (Ebates/Rakuten). GLOBAL CONFERENCE: https://www.startupgrind.com/conference/ READ THE BLOG: https://medium.com/startup-grind TWITTER: https://twitter.com/StartupGrind FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/StartupGrind/ INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/startup/

Freddy Vega is CEO and co-founder of Platzi, a fast-growing e-learning platform with an impressive 70% completion rate by students who take the company's courses. At the age of 16, he created a community called Cristalab, which, six years later, became the largest community of developers in Latin America. At this point, he merged his community with that of his co-founder, Christian Van Der Henst, and created Mejorando.la, a community with an educational offering. With this growing community a new technology platform for streaming live classes with tools for engaging the audience, Freddy co-founded Platzi in 2013. After graduating from the Winter 2015 class of YCombinator and continuing it's growth track, the company is setting it's sights on a global marketplace. Startup Grind Bogota features incredible talks with entrepreneurs from Startup Grind’s world wide network. Startup Grind is a global startup community designed to educate, inspire, and connect entrepreneurs. We host monthly events in more than 100

Emily Chang is the San Francisco-based anchor and executive producer of “Bloomberg Technology,” Bloomberg Television’s weekday technology program. She is the author of ""Brotopia: Breaking Up the Boys’ Club of Silicon Valley,” which was published by Portfolio Books in February 2018. Arlan Hamilton built a venture capital fund from the ground up, while homeless. She is the Founder and Managing Partner of Backstage Capital, a fund that is dedicated to minimizing funding disparities in tech by investing in high-potential founders who are of color, women, and/or LGBT. GLOBAL CONFERENCE: https://www.startupgrind.com/conference/ READ THE BLOG: https://medium.com/startup-grind TWITTER: https://twitter.com/StartupGrind FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/StartupGrind/ INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/startup/

Guy Kawasaki Guy Kawasaki is the chief evangelist of Canva, a graphics-design online service, and an executive fellow at the Haas School of Business at U.C. Berkeley. Formerly, he was an advisor to the Motorola business unit of Google and chief evangelist of Apple. He is also the author of APE, What the Plus!, Enchantment, and many other books. Guy has a BA from Stanford University and an MBA from UCLA as well as an honorary doctorate from Babson College. Interviewed by: Jule Lund After 15 years hosting some of the biggest TV and Radio shows in the country, Jules Lund has now taken the audacious step of founding his own tech company, TRIBE. Launched in Nov 2015, TRIBE is a digital marketplace that connects social media influencers with leading brands to transform word of mouth recommendations. Celebrity and everyday influencers who have built audiences around a particular passion or expertise, can now submit and get paid for posts featuring products they already use and love. In 2013, Jules quickly became obs

Welcome to the Startup Grind podcast! We're back after a short break. This time from Hong Kong with the one and only Gary Vaynerchuk. We're talking about all things entrepreneurship, social media, China and self-awareness.  If you don't know Gary, here is a short intro: Gary Vaynerchuk is a serial entrepreneur and the CEO and co-founder of VaynerMedia, a full-service digital agency servicing Fortune 500 clients across the company’s 4 locations. Gary appears with Gwyneth Paltrow, Jessica Alba and Will.i.am on Apple’s first original series “Planet of the Apps” out now! (Click Here to Learn More!) Gary rose to prominence in the late 90’s after establishing one of the first ecommerce wine sites, WineLibrary helping his father grow the family business from 4 to 60MM in sales. Gary is also one of the most sought after public speakers alive today. He is a venture capitalist, 4-time New York Times bestselling author, and an early investor in companies such as Twitter, Tumblr, Venmo and Uber. Gary has been named to b

Hey there and welcome to Monday’s episode the Startup Grind Podcast. Today we have a conversation with the CEO & Co-founder of Deliveroo, William Shu from our first regional conference, Startup Grind Europe in June of this year. Will is really on a mission to transform the way the world thinks about takeaway food. He founded Deliveroo in August 2013 after becoming fed up with London's poor quality and slow food delivery options. Prior to starting the company, he worked in banking at Morgan Stanley, ESO Capital and SAC Capita. Deliveroo is now in over 50 cities across the world and has attracted $200m worth of investment from some of the world's leading investors, including Index Ventures, Accel and DST Global. Let’s listen into Wiliam Shu on-stage at Startup Grind Europe in June of this year. 

Noah Everett, founder of the popular Twitpic photo sharing service and most recently the messaging platform Pingly.  Everett, a Carolina native is widely known as a pioneer of photo sharing on mobile phones and social media. Newly launched Pingly is a direct messaging platform that also works over email and SMS. His goal is to transform messaging into a simplistic and cohesive process that speaks across networks. Before launching Pingly, Noah was most recently Founder and CEO of TwitPic. What started as a side project quickly turned into one of the largest photo sharing apps of its time, gaining over 30 million users which included many celebrities and politicians. In 2009 the young entrepreneur moved to Charleston, South Carolina just as his site began growing exponentially. TwitPic became one of the largest photo-sharing services on Twitter and was acquired by Twitter in late 2014. Lets listen into Noah Everett interviewed in South Carolina by Director Jeremy Berman. 

Today we have a special interview from our Global Conference with Sebastian Thrun co-founder & CEO of Udacity and former head of Google X.      Sebastian Thrun is also a former Google Fellow and VP, and a Research Professor at Stanford University.    He has published over 370 scientific papers and 11 books, and he is a member of the National Academy of Engineering. Sebastian works on revolutionizing all of transportation, education, homes, and medical care.    Fast Company named Thrun the fifth most creative person in business, and Foreign Policy touted him Global Thinker #4.  At Stanford, Sebastian led the Thrun Lab in creating Google Streetview. Then, at Google, Sebastian founded Google X. He leveraged X to launch projects like the self-driving cars, Google Glass, indoor navigation, Google Brain, Project Wing and Project Loon.    At Udacity, his vision is to democratize higher education. Udacity stands for "we are audacious, for you, the student". His team created the notion of "nanodegrees" which emp

Hey there and welcome to Monday’s episode of the startup grind podcast. Today we have a great conversation with Joy Randels CEO of New Market Partners and 11 time serial entrepreneur. She also happens to be the director of one of Startup Grind’s best chapters, Tampa Bay. Joy is a highly energetic presenter and frequent speaker on entrepreneurship, security, mobile and cloud technology. Joy co-founded New Market Partners in 2003 to assist emerging technology companies in taking their ideas from concept to a successful business. She also co-founded the Nurturism Media Group, Digital Collective and Applied G2. Joy is also an active angel investor with success most recently through the acquisition of several startup ventures, including Velocitude, a mobile technology company acquired by Akamai Technologies. Let’s listen into Joy Randels live from Startup Grind’s Global Conference Earlier this year.