Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 17, 2010

We have many seasoned entrepreneurs who have built successful companies here and made a lot of money for investors and themselves. But LA is not Silicon Valley and we don’t need to aspire to be so. DemandMedia has already scaled a tech team to a considerable size in Santa Monica. So it’s always a trade-off.

Company 290

Company Companies Technology Startup 290

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 17, 2012

ZestCash, founded by Douglas Merrill, former CIO of Google [Hollywood]. So, yeah, I would like LA to be LA. I guess Santa Monica is officially “Silicon Beach” in the local people’s minds. Still, I kind like the name, well, um, … Santa Monica. Like they truly understood entrepreneurs.

Startup 304

Startup Venture Capital Los Angeles Woodland Hills 304

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 15, 2011

We were talking about a company, Factual (disclosure my firm is an investor), which was founded by one of LA’s most talented Internet entrepreneurs, Gil Elbaz , who as co-founder of Applied Semantics (purchased by pre-IPO Google for $102 million and now Google AdSense) is responsible for a large portion of the Internet’s monetization.

Venture Capital 313

Venture Capital Southern California Google Startup 313