Order tickets via Eventbrite:
http://startoutspkrmay-efbevent.eventbrite.com
StartOut SF is proud to present a very unique event in our Major Speaker Series — one that features an entrepreneurial couple! Megan Smith, Google's VP of New Business Development, General Manager for Google.Org and the former CEO of PlanetOut, will be grilled and interviewed by her spouse Kara Swisher, an accomplished journalist, entrepreneur, business leader, and key media influencer. This lively and feisty interview by Kara, Ms. AllThingsD.com for the Wall Street Journal, will focus on Megan's past and present, from the PlanetOut experience, to her positions at Google and beyond.
We begin the evening with a networking reception of cocktails and hors d'oeuvres at the offices of our event host, Pillsbury.
Whether you're in the early stages of an entrepreneurial career, an experienced entrepreneur looking for new perspectives, interested in making the leap into entrepreneurship or you advise entrepreneurs, join us for an insightful and fun evening of networking and exciting content, hearing directly from some of our community's most successful leaders.
The evening agenda is as follows:
5:30-6:30pm - Networking Cocktail Hour
6:30-7:30pm - Outstanding Speaker Series Event
7:30-8:30pm - After-Panel Reception
Event sponsored by Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP -
www.pillsburylaw.com
Photography by Shae Rocco -
www.shaerocco.com
Webcast support by David Trudrung,
www.energytalkradio.com
Our Guest Speakers
Megan Smith, Vice President, New Business Development, and General
Manager, Google.org
Megan oversees teams that manage early-stage partnerships, explorations and technology licensing. She also leads the Google.org team, guiding strategy and developing new partnerships and internal projects with Google's engineering and product teams. She joined Google in 2003 and has led several of the company's acquisitions, including Keyhole (Google Earth), Where2Tech (Google Maps), and Picasa. She also co-led the company's early work with publishers for Google Book Search. Previously, Megan was the CEO and, earlier, COO of PlanetOut, the leading gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender online community. Under her leadership, PlanetOut grew tenfold in reach and revenue. Prior to that, Megan was at General Magic for six years working on handheld communications products and partnerships. She also worked in multimedia at Apple Japan in Tokyo.
Over the years, Megan has contributed to a wide range of engineering projects, such as designing an award-winning bicycle lock; working on a space station construction research project that eventually flew on the U.S. space shuttle; and running a field-research study on solar cookstoves in South America. She was also a member of the MIT-Solectria student team that designed, built, and raced a solar car in the first cross-continental solar car race, covering 2000 miles of the Australian outback. She was selected as one of the 100 World Economic Forum technology pioneers for 2001 and 2002.
Megan holds a bachelor's degree and a master's degree in mechanical engineering from MIT, where she now serves on the board. She completed her master's thesis work at the MIT Media Lab.
Kara Swisher, Co-Executive Editor, AllThingsD.com
Kara Swisher started covering digital issues for The Wall Street Journal's San Francisco bureau in 1997. Her column BoomTown originally appeared on the front page of the Marketplace section and also online at WSJ.com.
Previously, Ms. Swisher covered breaking news about the Web's major players and Internet policy issues and also wrote feature articles on technology for the paper. She has also written a weekly column for the Personal Journal on home gadget issues called Home Economics.
With Walt Mossberg, she currently co-produces and co-hosts D: All Things Digital, a major high-tech conference with interviewees such as Bill Gates,
Steve Jobs and many other leading players in the tech and media industries. The gathering is considered one of the leading conferences focused on the convergence of tech and media industries.
Previously, Ms. Swisher worked as a reporter at the Washington Post. She is also the author of "aol.com: How Steve Case Beat Bill Gates, Nailed the Netheads and Made Millions in the War for the Web," published by Times Business Books in July 1998. The sequel, "There Must Be a Pony in Here Somewhere: The AOL Time Warner Debacle and the Quest for a Digital Future," was published in the fall of 2003 by Crown Business Books.
She is a graduate of Georgetown University and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
