As a versatile leader in the tech industry, I've embraced roles as an Executive Advisor & Coach, VC, CEO, CTO, and SVP of Product and Engineering over the past decade.My journey includes advising and coaching hundreds of companies, investing in over 100 ventures, and founding 6 startups with 4 exits and 1 IPO. My expertise encompasses retail-tech, ad-tech, social collaboration, licensing, fin-tech, databases, security, and venture. I've honed my skills at world-class research labs and expanded my knowledge as a lecturer and researcher on databases, UX, computer languages, graphics, computer vision, and operating systems at renowned universities.I'm passionate about sharing insights on startup and coaching challenges through my Substack, Art of the Start (https://artofthestart.substack.com).My accomplishments include leading Converge Retail to re-engage retail customers with digital experiences, advising and investing in diverse startups at Persefon Ventures, running Product and Strategy at BuzzLogic/Twelvefold Media, and developing BlogRovR at Activeweave. I've also held significant roles at UC Berkeley's SkyDeck accelerator as Advisor Council Chair, Key Advisor, Board of Trustees, and overseeing the SkyDeck Angel Network and Advisor LevelUp programs.I lead the Francisco Park Conservancy, a non-profit which raised $30 million, built a 4 acre park, and gifted it to the City of San Francisco.I'm fortunate to have had the chance to architect the world's first digital trading floor at Fidelity as principal architect at Tibco, and befriend and learn from industry luminaries such as Peter Deutsch, Bill Joy, Eric Schmidt, Randy Katz, Eric Allman, and Michael Stonebraker at UC Berkeley and Xerox PARC where I worked on the development of Smalltalk-80 and the Ingres RDBMS. Also of having had teh chance to sail across the Pacific on a 40-foot sailboat in 2011.Specialties: Leadership & Management, Entrepreneurship, Startups, Legal and Patent Matters, M&A, Collaboration, Product Management and Engineering, Distributed and Scalable Systems, and Algorithms.