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Tristan Walker is an American founder and CEO, most notable for starting Walker & Company in 2013, which was purchased by Procter & Gamble. In addition to being CEO of Walker & Company, Walker is a board member for Shake Shack and Foot Locker. [1] [2] He also co-founded the non-profit CODE2040, which helps connect people of color with engineering internships. [3]
Walker grew up in Queens, NY with his mother and older brother. His father was killed when he was 3 years old, and wanting a safe future for her children, Walker's mother encouraged her children to do well in school, and was disciplined about their free time after school. [4] Walker was awarded a scholarship to board and attend the elite Hotchkiss School, graduating in 2002. [5] He studied economics at SUNY Stony Brook, and graduated in 2005. Between his first and second year at University, Walker was offered an internship at Lehman Brothers in their back office, and eventually was able to observe their trading desks. On graduation, Walker was employed as a trader for Lehman Brothers. In January 2008 Walker was laid off from his trading position at J.P. Morgan. [6] [7] , the same year he went to Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Walker interned at Twitter and Boston Consulting Group, before working at Foursquare as the third employee and director of business development. [8]
In 2012, Walker was the Entrepreneur-in-residence at venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. [9] While there, he co-founded CODE2040 and Walker & Co.
Walker & Co. is the parent company of Bevel, a men's grooming brand whose flagship product was a single blade razor and electric trimmer. Bevel expanded into what Vibe called "a full-fledged beauty and skincare company for men." [10] The health and hygiene company was founded with people of color as the target audience. [11] [12]
By 2015, Walker had raised a total of $33.3 million dollars for Walker & Co and board members included Magic Johnson, John Legend and Andre Iguodala. [13] Walker was nominated for Founder of the Year by TechCrunch in 2015 and in 2016 TechCrunch wrote "Walker is becoming, if he’s not already, a household name in Silicon Valley". [14] [15]
In 2018, Walker & Co. sold to Procter & Gamble for an undisclosed amount. [16]
Fast Company called Walker in a profile: "[a] bold entrepreneur with a radical startup." [17] The New York Times said that Walker "built a company for the demographic future." [18] Fortune named him #19 in a list of the world's 50 greatest leaders in 2019. [19] USA Today called Walker "the highest-profile African-American CEO and founder in Silicon Valley." [20] Selected as Time's 100 Next, Time wrote that Walker "wants to build more than a company; he wants to build a legacy." [21]
Mark Jonathan Pincus is an American Internet entrepreneur known as the founder of Zynga, a mobile social gaming company. Pincus also founded the startups Freeloader, Inc., Tribe Networks, and Support.com. Pincus served as the CEO of Zynga until July 2013, then again from 2015 to 2016.
Evan "Ev" Clark Williams is an American billionaire technology entrepreneur. He is a co-founder of Twitter, and was its CEO from 2008 to 2010, and a member of its board from 2007 to 2019. He founded Blogger and Medium, two of the largest blogging internet platforms. In 2014, he co-founded the venture capital firm Obvious Ventures. As of February 2022, his net worth is estimated at US$2.1 billion.
Founders Fund is a San Francisco based venture capital firm formed in 2005 and has roughly $11 billion in total assets under management as of 2022. Founders Fund was the first institutional investor in Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) and Palantir Technologies, and early investor in Facebook. The firm’s partners, including Peter Thiel, Ken Howery and Brian Singerman, have been founders, early employees and investors at companies including PayPal, Google, Palantir Technologies, and SpaceX.
J. Michael Arrington is the American founder and former co-editor of TechCrunch, a blog covering the Silicon Valley technology start-up communities and the wider technology field in America and elsewhere. Magazines such as Wired and Forbes have named Arrington one of the most powerful people on the Internet. In 2008, he was selected by TIME Magazine as one of the most influential people in the world.
James W. Breyer is an American venture capitalist, founder and chief executive officer of Breyer Capital, an investment and venture philanthropy firm, and a former managing partner at Accel Partners, a venture capital firm. Breyer has invested in over 40 companies that have gone public or completed a merger, with some of these investments, including Facebook, earning over 100 times cost and many others over 25 times cost. On the Forbes 2021 list of the 400 richest Americans, he was ranked #389, with a net worth of US$2.9 billion.
Richard William Costolo is an American businessman. He was the CEO of Twitter, Inc. from 2010 to 2015; he also served as the COO before becoming CEO. He took over as CEO from Evan Williams in October 2010. On June 11, 2015, it was announced that Costolo would step down as CEO on July 1, 2015, and would be replaced by Twitter co-founder and chairman Jack Dorsey on an interim basis until the Board of Directors could find a replacement. On August 8, 2015, The New York Times reported that Costolo would be leaving Twitter's Board of Directors by the end of the year or when a new CEO was appointed.
CHINICT is a conference including a Hackathon focused on the China tech innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem. CHINICT takes place once a year at the end of May in Beijing at Tsinghua University Science Park.
TaskRabbit, Inc or TaskRabbit is an online and mobile marketplace that matches freelance labor with local demand, allowing consumers to find help with everyday tasks, including furniture assembly, moving, delivery, and handyperson work.
Yishan Wong is an American engineer and entrepreneur who was CEO of Reddit from March 2012 until his resignation in November 2014. With Niniane Wang he is also co-founder of the Mountain View coworking space Sunfire Offices, and was an advisor at Quora. Wong was briefly a contributing blogger to Forbes magazine.
Tina Sharkey is an American entrepreneur, advisor, and investor. Noted for "discovering ways to bring consumers and businesses together," she co-founded Brandless and iVillage; served as chair and global president of BabyCenter; led multiple business units at AOL, and served as president of the Sesame Street Digital Group. She is a member of the PBS Board of Directors.
Joe Green is a serial social entrepreneur and investor based in San Francisco, CA. He is the co-founder and President of the Psychedelic Science Funders Collaborative, a nonprofit donor network that supports research on psychedelic medicine. Green is also the co-founder of Treehouse, a company that develops community living apartment complexes in Los Angeles, CA.
Clinkle was a mobile payments company founded in 2012. In 2013 they raised $25 million and the product launched to college students on September 24, 2014.
Bonobos is an e-commerce-driven apparel company that designs and sells menswear including men's suits, trousers, denim, shirts, shorts, swimwear, outerwear, and accessories. The company was founded by Stanford Business School students Andy Dunn and Brian Spaly, and launched as an online retailer in 2007.
Sukhinder Singh Cassidy is a technology executive and entrepreneur. Formerly the president of StubHub, she has worked at various tech and media companies including Google, Amazon and News Corp, Yodlee (YODL), and Polyvore. In 2011, she founded JOYUS, the video shopping platform for women, and served as CEO then Chairman until 2017. Singh Cassidy is also Founder of theBoardlist.
Michael Seibel is a managing director at Y Combinator and co-founder of two startups – Justin.tv/Twitch and Socialcam. He first joined Y Combinator in 2013, advising hundreds of startups, and has been active in promoting diversity efforts among startup founders.
Abra is a financial services and technology company that operates a cryptocurrency wallet service including a trading service for buying and selling cryptocurrencies, a service for earning interest on cryptocurrencies and stablecoins, and a lending services for borrowing against cryptocurrency collateral.
Brandless is an American e-commerce company that manufactures and sells products under its own label led by Cydni Tetro as CEO.
Laura Weidman Powers is the CEO of the technology industry diversity organization Code2040 and formerly worked at White House Office of Science and Technology Policy during the Barack Obama administration.
Brex Inc. is an American financial service and technology company that offers business credit cards and cash management accounts to technology companies. Brex cards are business charge cards, which require at least $50,000 in a bank account if professionally invested, if not with $100,000 to open, and cardholders who default won't damage their personal credit or assets. Emigrant Bank issues the Brex cards.
Opontia is an e-commerce company founded in February 2021 by Philip Johnston and Manfred Meyer.