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About Me

You’ve found the home of Brian Berliner - entrepreneur, investor, open source pioneer, CVS creator, and overall good guy. Some details about me (and some pictures):

The important stuff

Professional stuff

  • Most recently I was an Entrepreneur in Residence (EIR) at Sevin Rosen Funds, a top-tier venture capital firm in Palo Alto. I spent 10 months investigating startup opportunities, bringing in dealflow, and doing due diligence on startup companies in the following markets:
    • Enterprise Software/Systems
    • Open Source and Software as a Service
    • Mobile/Wireless Services
    • Online Gaming/Synthetic Worlds
    • Social Networking/Web 2.0
  • I currently serve on the Board of Advisors of Akimbi Systems. Akimbi Systems develops Virtual Lab Automation solutions optimized for use in large software development and test organizations. Manages Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 and VMware ESX Server.
  • I was Founder and Founding CTO of Cassatt Corporation. Cassatt was recognized as one of Network World’s 10 Start-ups to Watch” in 2005. Cassatt is a privately-held company funded by Warburg Pincus and New Enterprise Associates, and is creating on-demand IT infrastructure software for large enterprises.
  • I was Founder and EVP of Engineering and Product Architecture for Allocity (acquired by EMC in November, 2004). We built storage management and continuous data protection software for Microsoft Exchange servers. Allocity was funded by Mohr Davidow Ventures, Redpoint Ventures, and Sequoia Capital.
  • I was Founder and VP of B2B Technologies and Chief Architect for ChannelPoint, building enterprise software for the insurance and financial services industries. ChannelPoint filed their S-1 (available at FreeEDGAR) in March 2000, bursting the Internet bubble for everyone. Sorry. ChannelPoint was funded by Mohr Davidow Ventures, Pacific Venture Group, Validus Partners, Capital Z Partners, GE Capital, and many others.
  • I was Senior Staff Engineer at Sun Microsystems, and, in 1989, founded Sun’s Rocky Mountain Technology Center in Colorado Springs, CO. I hold 10 Software Patents for non-volatile network caching for Sun.
  • I was Senior Software Engineer at Prisma Supercomputers (aka Prisma Technica), a startup company attempting to build the world’s fastest scalar supercomputer compatible with Sun’s SPARC architecture, built out of Gallium Arsenide (GaAs) components in 1988. Too aggressive? Oh yeah.
  • I was Senior Software Engineer at Convex Computer Corporation, a vector processing supercomputer company. We did an IPO in 1986. Convex was subsequently acquired by HP as part of their massively parallel computing initiatives.
  • I was a student programmer at Compion Corporation, which got acquired by Gould Computer Systems Division. We worked on the FireBreather mini-supercomputer systems, running secure UTX-32.
  • I graduated from the University of Illinois with a BS in Computer Science in 1985.

Concurrent Versions System (CVS)

Other stuff

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Comments

  1. [...] OK, so I intend to write about some of my experiences with the Venture Capital and Private Equity industries. See my Venture Capital FAQ Series for a list of possible topics (and leave a comment if you want to see something else). So, what makes my prose worthy of reading? [...]

    ReplyDelete
  2. Search And Rescue, Death, and Failed Startups...

    This really is about startups. Hang with me a moment.
    There has been some recent talk about failed startups, including Brad Feld’s Talking About Failure post, 52 Reviews 5 Reasons for Embracing Failure post, John Battelle’s Failure to Fail ...

    ReplyDelete
  3. [...] There has been some recent talk about failed startups, including Brad Feld’s Talking About Failure post, 52 Reviews 5 Reasons for Embracing Failure post, John Battelle’s Failure to Fail post,  and Andrew Fife’s Key Lessons From Cryptine Networks Failure post. I’ve been around a long time, so I’ve seen lots of success and lots of failures. I’ll be writing about those in the future. For now, here’s something completely different. [...]

    ReplyDelete
  4. [...] Peter Levine, CEO of XenSource, did a Keynote address at LinuxWorld last month. He did a really nice job (I am a mountaineer as well, so I appreciated the slide deck… Peter: Let’s go climbing!). The video is now available. Some comments below. [...]

    ReplyDelete
  5. Brian,

    My wife Kellyn Hall remembers you from Coconut Creek High School. What is your email address?

    I invited you to connect on LinkedIn. Please accept my invitation.

    My LinkedIn Profile is at:
    http://www.linkedin.com/in/CorporateCreations

    Frank A. Rodriguez
    CEO and General Counsel
    Corporate Creations International Inc.
    11380 Prosperity Farms Road #221E
    Palm Beach Gardens, Florida 33410
    United States
    Tel 561-694-8107
    Fax 561-694-1639

    Registered Agent * Director * Incorporation
    http://www.CorporateCreations.com

    Corporate Creations continues to grow. Corporate Creations provides registered agent services nationwide for many Fortune 1000 companies, Global 2000 companies and other prominent companies. In addition, Corporate Creations provides registered agent services nationwide for many Am Law 200 law firms, NLJ 250 law firms and their clients. Our services have earned unprecedented acceptance in our industry. Corporate Creations has never lost a major account. We consistently take market share away from our competitors. We provide the best solution at the best price.

    ReplyDelete
  6. [...] CEO of XenSource, did a Keynote address at LinuxWorld last month. He did a really nice job (I am a mountaineer as well, so I appreciated the slide deck… Peter: Let’s go climbing!). The video is now [...]

    ReplyDelete
  7. [...] Failure to Fail post,  and Andrew Fife’s Key Lessons From Cryptine Networks Failure post. I’ve been around a long time, so I’ve seen lots of success and lots of failures. I’ll be writing about those in the [...]

    ReplyDelete
  8. [...] and I’m trying to keep it fun and fresh. Something more like a resume can be found in my About Me post. PersonalDNA considers me to be an “Advocating Leader”, whatever that [...]

    ReplyDelete

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