Board of Directors
Nova Spivack
Founder and CEO
Nova Spivack is a technology visionary and entrepreneur with nearly two decades of experience in pioneering ventures. In 1994, Mr. Spivack co-founded EarthWeb, one of the first Internet companies, where he was Executive Vice-President for Products, Strategy and Marketing. EarthWeb went public in 1999 and resulted in the Nasdaq's largest IPO single-day percentage point gain up to that point, spawning a wave of Tech IPOs. Mr. Spivack left EarthWeb’s board of directors in 1999 and began advising startups and angel investing. During the down-years of the post-Internet-bubble, EarthWeb’s content properties were acquired in 2000 by Internet.com. The company’s Dice.com property remained a strong stand-alone business until it was acquired for approximately $200 million in 2005.
While at EarthWeb he helped key cultural institutions and businesses develop their first large-scale Web presences, including the New York Stock Exchange, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, BMG Music Club, Sony, AT&T, US West, and others. He also helped to catalyze the adoption of Java technology by leading the production of large on communities for the IT professionals, including Gamelan.com, Developer.com, and Datamation.com.
Prior to EarthWeb, Mr. Spivack worked in a variety of roles from technology marketing to software engineering at artificial intelligence and next-generation computing ventures including Individual, Inc., Ray Kurzweil’s pioneering OCR company, Kurzweil Computer Products which was sold to Xerox, and at Danny Hillis’ legendary supercomputing venture, Thinking Machines. Mr. Spivack is also the founder of Lucid Ventures, an early-stage incubator that originated the technologies that are now Radar Networks. Mr. Spivack is a co-founder of the San Francisco Web Innovators Network (SFWIN), a network of several hundred technology innovators and business leaders who meet monthly in the Bay Area.
Mr. Spivack has extensive experience working on knowledge representation and the Semantic Web, and has authored and helped to design several large (500 to 3000 class) ontologies in the OWL language, the W3C open standard for ontology specifications. Mr. Spivack has also been a lead advisor to SRI International on the DARPA CALO program, a distributed research program encompassing several hundred top researchers across over 20 major research institutions focused on next-generation semantically-aware machine learning applications, and in particular on the IRIS Semantic Desktop project. Also with SRI and Sarnoff Laboratories, Mr. Spivack helped to co-found nVention, SRI’s in-house technology incubator.
Mr. Spivack has co-authored several books on Internet strategy and technology and led the EarthWeb Press publishing imprint with Macmillan Computer Publishing, one of the largest computer book publishers, which resulted in a series of publications by leading authors on technology. He has been featured and cited in Business Week, CNN, CNBC, CBS Evening News, CNN-FN, Discovery Channel, The New York Times, Washington Post, WIRED Magazine, Chronicle of Philanthropy, Communications Week, Interactive Week, Internet World, Reuters, Newsweek, Red Herring, Silicon Alley Reporter, Interactive Age, Web Week, Java Developer’s Journal, and has spoken at numerous conferences and industry events. Mr. Spivack also helped to invent key technologies for interactive television and Web convergence in the early days of the Web, as well as several pending patents for Radar Networks.
Mr. Spivack has a long-time interest in cognitive science, artificial intelligence, emergent computation, knowledge management and the emerging Semantic Web. As a grandson of management guru Peter F. Drucker, Mr. Spivack shares his family’s heritage of interests in management theory, nonprofits, and knowledge work. In addition, he has been a student of Tibetan Buddhist philosophy, art and culture for nearly 20 years and has pursued this interest extensively in monasteries, refugee camps and communities in Nepal, India, Europe and the USA. Mr. Spivack focuses his philanthropic activities on helping to fund the preservation of Tibet’s unique wisdom culture as a world-heritage treasure for the benefit of future generations.
Mr. Spivack has a BA in Philosophy, with a focus on cognitive science and artificial intelligence, from Oberlin College and a CSS degree from the International Space University a NASA-funded graduate professional business school for the space industry. In 1999 Mr. Spivack’s interest in space gave him the opportunity to help pioneer the early days of space tourism when he flew to the edge of space with Space Adventures and did micro-gravity parabolic flight training with the Russian air force.
Mr. Spivack’s weblog, Minding the Planet, focuses on Radar Networks and emerging technologies and can be read at http://www.mindingtheplanet.net.
Steve Hall
Steve Hall oversees technology venture investments for Vulcan Capital where his investment areas include next-generation Internet, data intelligence, and embedded networks. His current investments include Ember Corporation, Zoominfo, Radar Networks, and Imperium Renewables. Mr. Hall began venture investing with Prospect Street Ventures where his investment activity included About.com (acquired by NY Times), Multex Systems (acquired by Reuters), Live Advice (acquired by Ingenio) and Bigfoot Interactive (acquired by Alliance Data). Early in his venture career, Mr. Hall was profiled by UPSIDE magazine as a "VC to watch" in the article, "Bold: A New Generation is Changing the Face of Venture Capital." Mr. Hall was formerly a corporate attorney with White & Case in New York, where his M&A and securities transactions totaled over $2.5 billion. He is a frequent guest lecturer on venture capital investing and deal structuring at both Columbia Law School and UCLA Law School. Mr. Hall received his BA in business administration and BA in political science from Furman University and JD from Columbia University Law School, where he was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar. He is a member of the New York Bar. Mr. Hall’s weblog can be accessed at: http://nwvc.blogs.com.
Ross Levinsohn
Over the past 20 years, Ross had been on the forefront of media innovation and transformation. In 2004, he was tapped by News Corporation Chairman Rupert Murdoch to devise the digital strategy for the company. In executing that plan, he helped transform the company to become the global leader amongst its peers in the digital media space through dynamic investments and strategic management, including the acquisitions of Myspace and IGN.com, which helped vault the company to create a digital powerhouse. He also oversaw the acquisitions of Askmen.com, Scout.com, Newroo, KSolo, amongst others.
As President of Fox Interactive Media, Ross managed all day-to-day operations for the company from its inception until December 2006. Under his leadership, the FOX Network of sites became one of the largest on the Internet with record setting growth with more than 140 million monthly users. He also oversaw a partnership with Google, which will yield the company nearly $1 billion in advertising from the search and monetization leader.
Previously, Ross served as Senior Vice President and General Manager of Fox Sports Interactive Media. In this role, he oversaw the online, wireless and broadband presence for Fox Sports. Earlier in his career, Ross held senior management positions with AltaVista Network, an early pioneer and leader in search, CBS Sportsline, where he oversaw all content and development for the top rated sports site and pay cable giant HBO. He also spent time in advertising at Saatchi and Saatchi and in sports management and marketing with ProServ and Lapin and Rose Communications.
Ross currently serves on the board of music leader Napster.com, storage and media management leader Fabrik, Inc., Virtual World innovator VSIDE, and one of the leading Internet holding companies in India, Fuse+Media.
Baris Karadogan
Baris is a partner at Velocity Interactive Group who focuses on the Internet and digital media investments. Prior to joining Velocity Interactive Group, Baris worked six years at U.S. Venture Partners, a leading Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm.
Baris’ recent board seats/investments include: Doppelganger, HIP Digital Media, Like.com, SpectraLinear, Redline Communications (LSE: REDL) and Aspendos Communications.
Before becoming a venture capitalist, Baris worked in both engineering and marketing at 3Com/U.S. Robotics, where he worked to develop the company's networking and cable industry products. His efforts at U.S. Robotics resulted in a number of U.S. patents. Baris holds an MBA from Stanford University Graduate School of Business, where he was an Arjay Miller Scholar, and an MS in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University. He earned a BS in Electrical Engineering from Lafayette College, where he graduated summa cum laude.
Best way to get to know him is to read his blog, From Istanbul to Sand Hill Road which focuses on high technology, venture capital, innovation and creativity.