The following tech leaders have spoken at D@CES in 2010 or 2011. Read and watch what they had to say at our D@CES Conference Web site.
D@CES 2011
Dick Costolo
CEO
Twitter, Inc
Before joining Twitter as its COO, Costolo was already knee-deep in start-up mulch. He was the co-founder and CEO of FeedBurner, a digital content syndication platform that was acquired by Google in 2007. At Google, he was Group Product Manager responsible for social media ads. Costolo spent most of the 90s in Chicago founding and running: SpyOnIt, a web page monitoring service, and Burning Door Networked Media, a web design and development consulting company. He graduated from the University of Michigan with a B.S. in Computer Science, but if he seems more comfortable on stage than your average comp sci guy, it's probably because he performed in multiple shows with Chicago's acclaimed Annoyance Theatre.
Dean Hachamovitch
Corporate Vice President, Internet Explorer
Microsoft
Once the Hercules of Web browsers and still the most popular, Internet Explorer has seen its share dwindle as shiny new browsers gobble up users. As Microsoft’s head of Windows Internet Explorer, Dean Hachamovitch is responsible for the design, development and release of IE and its updates, so retaining, regaining and impressing end users is his Job One.
Like IE's millions of users, he wants the software to "just work" on installation. And behind the public face of IE, he takes pride in creating new ways for developers to do more with browser technology in general.
Hachamovitch is a genuine Harvard math geek who is the designated IT guy for his entire extended family.
Jen-Hsun Huang
Founder, President and CEO
Nvidia
NVIDIA is not only a pioneer of graphics chips, but now its processors are widely used in the latest mobile devices. That’s why its founder and CEO Jen-Hsun Huang has a lot to say about the future of mobile computing, from smartphones to tablets and whatever’s next.
D@CES 2010
Reed Hastings
Co-Founder and CEO
Netflix, Inc.
Hastings co-founded Netflix as a DVD rental-by-mail company in 1997. In 2002, Netflix went public, and in 2003, Netflix reached 1 million subscribers. Thanks to streaming content over the Internet, Netflix now has over 20 million subscribers. Earlier in his career, in 1991, he founded Pure Software, which made tools for Unix software developers. He built Pure into one of the world's 50 largest public software companies before selling it to Rational Software in 1997. Reed received a BA from Bowdoin College and an MSCS in AI degree from Stanford University. Between Bowdoin and Stanford, Reed served in the Peace Corps as a high school math teacher in Swaziland. That may have been an easier task than his current one: dealing with media and cable companies who fear disruptive change.
Andy Rubin
SVP, Mobile
Google
With smartphones in ascendance globally, having Andy Rubin, who runs Google’s Android efforts, is a no-brainer. The longtime mobile exec is at the top of an aggressive push by the Silicon Valley Internet giant to dominate the important sector across the world.
Jon Rubinstein
Senior Vice President for Product Innovation
Personal Systems Group, Hewlett-Packard
Jon Rubinstein has had a long history in the mobile market, both up and down. At Apple, he worked on the introduction of the iconic iPod. After he left, Rubinstein tried to compete with his former employer in creating the Palm and its webOS oper- ating system. That did not turn out so well, but with its new home inside Hewlett-Packard, Rubsinstein has another chance to prove himself. Will it work? As head of the Palm global business unit, Rubinstein was leading HP's efforts in the mobility space, responsible for webOS software development and related hardware products. Before joining Apple, Rubinstein worked at HP and NeXT, and found- ed his own company, Firepower Systems. He received bachelor's and master's degrees in electrical engineering from Cornell University and a master's degree in computer science from Colorado State University.