How did Jane Park go from high-touch nail salons to an omni-channel social commerce brand? How did the local community convince Carlos Guestrin, a leader in machine learning, to move to Seattle where he’s built a company at the forefront of data intelligence? What are the valuable secrets—about business operations and security—hidden in the wire data that Jesse Rothstein’s company has exposed?
These three Seattle startup founders and CEOs will tackle these topics and more in conversation with some of Seattle’s foremost early stage investors Tuesday evening, Nov. 18, at Xconomy Xchange: Beauty and the Data Beast—Seattle Innovation Stories.
Tickets are still available to this exclusive event, designed to deliver insight from local innovation leaders without taking your whole day. Join us for drinks, networking, and three fireside-style chats at Impact Hub Seattle in the Pioneer Square neighborhood.
Here’s a preview of our program:
Guestrin, the CEO of GraphLab, begins the evening with Madrona Venture Group managing director Matt McIlwain. We’ve covered how Seattle tech leaders banded together to recruit Guestrin to the University of Washington, and the rise of GraphLab as a startup with an enviable team of data science, machine learning, and distributed computing experts.
McIlwain recently gave us a tour of the “dataware” technology stack—a more precise way of describing the interlocking technologies enabling the big data trend—and where GraphLab and Seattle fit within it.
Next up, we’ll hear from Rothstein, co-founder and CEO of ExtraHop, along with early investor and enterprise storage entrepreneur Sujal Patel, the co-founder of Isilon Systems. ExtraHop raised $41 million in May—one of the biggest venture rounds for a Northwest company this year—to advance its work on analyzing so-called wire data, which yields insights into IT systems, business operations, and as Rothstein explained in a post on Xconomy this week, next-generation enterprise security.
Patel, meanwhile, has a wealth of perspective on building and scaling enterprise infrastructure companies in Seattle. Four years ago this month, EMC bought Isilon for $2.25 billion. We recently caught up with Patel for his reflections on the company’s legacy in Seattle.
Finally, Jane Park, co-founder and CEO of Julep, will share insights with Jason Stoffer, partner at consumer-focused venture capital firm Maveron, on building businesses in collaboration with customers. Julep has attracted $56 million from leading venture capitalists to build out a modern consumer-facing company distinguished by its rapid development and delivery of new beauty products, informed by social-media and real-world interactions with the women who use them.
Park sat down with Xconomy earlier this month to talk about leadership and fostering good risk-taking behavior among her employees. Stoffer is an expert in building e-commerce brands in retail and education. He is on the boards of Julep, Dolls Kill, General Assembly, and, previously, zulily.
The event begins with registration and networking at 5 p.m., followed by the fireside chats from 6 to 7:30 p.m., and another chance to network afterward. Startup employees and students pay discounted rates, so come check it out for some inspiration as you build your own innovation story.
We look forward to seeing you there!
