Company Advisors
Philip Rosedale founded San Francisco-based Linden Lab in 1999, and has led the creation of the virtual world of Second Life from initial concept to a market-leading virtual world, with a robust economy and a global population. As a pioneer in the virtual world industry, Rosedale is actively involved in the strategy, development and design of Linden Lab’s products, including the world of Second Life and the Second Life Grid platform. Rosedale is known for his entrepreneurial approach to new technologies, starting a network software company when he was 17. In 1995 he created an innovative internet video conferencing product, which was later acquired by RealNetworks, where he went on to become Vice President and CTO. In 1999, the advent of consumer broadband and better PC 3D graphics inspired Rosedale to leave RealNetworks and found Linden Lab, pursuing his lifelong dream of creating an internet scale virtual world. Rosedale holds a BS degree in Physics from the University of California at San Diego.
Sujal Patel is the founder of Isilon and is recognized for pioneering clustered storage as an innovative technical architecture and creating this new sector of the enterprise storage market. Sujal has served as President and Chief Executive Officer since October 2007. He served as Isilon's Chief Technology Officer from 2001 to March 2008 and as President and Chief Executive Officer from the founding of Isilon in 2001 until August 2003. From 1996 to 2001, Sujal served in various engineering roles at RealNetworks, Inc., in part as chief architect behind the company's second-generation core media delivery system. Sujal holds a number of patents and pending patents, including those for the Isilon OneFS™ distributed file system. Sujal holds a bachelor's degree in computer science from the University of Maryland at College Park.
Mr. Evan L. Kaplan has been appointed as President, Chief Executive Officer and member of the Board of Directors of iPass Inc., effective November 2008. He was Founder, President, CEO and Chairman of Aventail Corporation, a pioneer in the Virtual Private Networking (VPN) equipment and services market and a long time strategic partner of iPass Inc. Evan brings 18 years of experience developing and delivering IP based communication services for enterprise customers and is the recipient of numerous industry awards including recognition as one Network World’s 50 most Powerful People in the Networking Industry and winner of Ernst and Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year for Technology in the Pacific Northwest.
Laurence has aligned business objectives and consumer needs to create compelling Internet experiences for more than 10 years. Prior to Cake, Laurence was the GM of Experience Management for Nike.com. He was responsible for developing and implementing the strategies and tactics necessary to position Nike, Inc.'s global digital commerce division as the leader in ecommerce.
At eBay, Laurence was the Director and GM of the Collectibles Business Unit (CBU) where he managed the P&L and team for $3 billion in annual transactions -- more than 12% of the U.S. transaction volume of the eBay marketplace.
Laurence received his M.B.A. from the University of California (Haas) and received his B.S. from Hampton University in Virginia.
Jon Zimmerman is a principal and co-founder at L1 Partners LLC, a fund manager specializing in systematic trading of global futures markets. Jon has applied quantitative methods in a variety of industries including travel, e-commerce, and wireless communications since 1992. Most recently, Jon was the Director of Strategic Pricing for T-Mobile USA. Before T-Mobile, Jon was the Director of Customer Analytics for Expedia.com, where he led the group responsible for recommendation systems and other analytical applications. Jon joined Expedia after working as a senior consultant at Decision Focus, Inc., where with several DFI colleagues he developed a patented method for optimizing prices across an airline’s flight network. Jon earned a Masters in Systems Engineering from the University of Virginia where he received a University Graduate Fellowship, a BS in Industrial Engineering from Stanford, and has completed doctoral coursework in Marketing Science at the University of Washington.