Kara Swisher

Recent Posts by Kara Swisher

Samsung’s David Eun Talks About New Silicon Valley Accelerator (Video)

Last week, I attended an event Samsung had in Silicon Valley to celebrate the opening of its new startup accelerator in Silicon Valley.

One of the largest consumer electronics and mobile companies in the world, Korea’s Samsung has had a relatively quiet profile in the global tech center, but that has changed dramatically of late.

Along with the new startup space, there is also the previously announced new 8.5-acre campus in Mountain View for its U.S. research and development center, slated for completion in 2014 and set for 2,000 employees (see image below).

But the Samsung accelerator is first out of the gate, lodged on the second floor of the former Borders Books space on University Avenue in Palo Alto. The historic property has a splashy movie marquee, since it used to house the Varsity Theatre.

Aimed at linking tech entrepreneurs and other players more closely with Samsung, the move is being spearheaded by a relatively new hire: David Eun, who became its EVP in December to lead a push to create more media offerings. Previous to Samsung, Eun has been an exec at both Google and AOL.

Eun is already well known in Silicon Valley — and gained some more attention recently, after he walked away from an airline crash at San Francisco’s international airport. He was flying in from Korea and he quickly chronicled the accident with dramatic photos on several social networks after he escaped from the disaster.

Eun talked a little about that and more in his speech opening the space last week:

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I’m a giant vat of creative juices.

— David Pogue on why he’s joining Yahoo