David Siminoff
David Siminoff | |
|---|---|
| Born | David Ellis Siminoff 1964 (age 59–60) California, U.S. |
| Education | B.A., Master of Fine Arts, USC Film School, 1989 MBA, Stanford Business School, 1993 |
| Occupation(s) | Entrepreneur, Investor |
| Years active | 1994–present |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 2 |
David E. Siminoff is a Silicon Valley investor and entrepreneur.[1]
Biography
[edit]Education
[edit]Siminoff graduated with Honors from Stanford University.[2] In 1986, he was a member of the varsity swimming & diving team, which went on to win multiple Pacific-10 Conference and NCAA Championships.[3] He later earned an MFA from the USC Film School[2] in 1989 and an MBA from Stanford Business School in 1993.
Career
[edit]He founded barter company EastNet in Moscow and Eastern Europe. He Joined Capital Research after selling EastNet, graduating from Stanford Graduate School of Business.[4]
At Capital Research he focused on the technology, media, and telecommunications sectors, and his fund was an early investor in Yahoo!, eBay, Amazon, PayPal, Netflix and America Online.[5] He was voted Best of the Buyside by Institutional Investor (magazine) in 1997, 98, 99 and 2000.[6] He became an early investor in Facebook, along with his jet ownership partner, Mark Pincus.[7] He is an IFR-rated private pilot with over 2,500 hours of flight time. He joined the board of coupons.Com/Quotient before its ipo, running the audit committee. He sat on private boards and helped launch a number of venture capital funds, including Formation 8/ 8vc, run by Joe Lonsdale.[8]
He later worked as the chief executive officer of Spark Networks, a publicly traded firm which is the parent company of JDate. He was a general partner at Venrock, the Rockefeller family's venture capital arm.[9] In 2008 the Siminoffs co-founded Shmoop, an online educational technology publishing company that specializes in test preparation materials and study guides.[10] Siminoff remains as Chief Creative Officer of Shmoop.[2] He subsequently founded SimSim.[2]
Personal life
[edit]Siminoff and his wife used to live in Los Altos Hills. They met while students at Stanford Graduate School of Business.[11] They have two children.[2]
He and his wife live in Teton Village, Wyoming where he is involved in a wide range of Wyoming activities, co-hosting the Wyoming Global Technology Summit with Jack Selby, Peter Thiel and John Temte.[12] He also sat in the kitchen cabinet of Senator Cynthia Lummis. He has sat on the Astrophysics Board at Princeton University since 2019 and runs a Radio-Phototropic observatory built into his home in Wyoming.[13] Siminoff is an amateur paleontologist (Golden Bone) and active pilot, formerly sharing flight duties with Eclipse Aviation partner Mark Pincus, the founder of Zynga.[14][1]
References
[edit]- ^ a b Blodget, Henry. "Microsoft Is "Roadkill"". Business Insider. Retrieved 2024-09-09.
- ^ a b c d e Blodget, Henry. "For America's Crappy High Schools, Help Is Finally On The Way...," Business Insider (Mar. 5, 2013).
- ^ "Menlo Magazine: Winter 2018". www.menloschool.org.
- ^ Auchard, Eric. "Venrock raises new $600 mln venture capital fund". Reuters.
- ^ Smith, Martin. Frontline interview, PBS website (May 2001).
- ^ Swisher, Kara. "The Couple of Silicon Valley: They Are Definitely Connected". Wall Street Journal.
- ^ "Overwhelmed by Social Media, Cybersecurity and Other Tech Topics? Read These Books". WSJ.
- ^ "STABLE ROAD ACQUISITION CORP. AND MOMENTUS INC. ANNOUNCE THREE INDEPENDENT DIRECTORS TO JOIN POST-COMBINATION COMPANY – Board to include Chris Hadfield, Veteran Astronaut and Former Commander of the International Space Station –". www.sec.gov.
- ^ Siminoff profile, Venrock.com. Archived at the Internet Archive. Accessed Nov. 2, 2019.
- ^ Ringle, Hayley. "Silicon Valley edtech company founded by former Yahoo executive moves HQ to Scottsdale: Affordable talent a driving factor in company relocation, exec says," Phoenix Business Journal (July 1, 2019).
- ^ Swisher, Kara. "A couple with online connections," The Wall Street Journal ( Jan. 27 1999). Archived from The Deseret News at the Wayback Machine. Accessed Nov. 2, 2019.
- ^ "The Jackson Hole Global Technology Partnership is excited to announce". Jackson Hole Tech Partnership.
- ^ "For America's Crappy High Schools, Help Is Finally On The Way... | Business Insider India". Business Insider.
- ^ Thomas, Owen. "Zynga Taps A Veteran Of Yahoo's Glory Days To Its Board," Business Insider (Jul 19, 2012).