Does anyone know anything about David Tisch who runs TechStars NYC?
I can't find anything about his entrepreneurial history online. (Knowmore.com is a dead URL, archive.org shows nothing for the years he ran it, his name has never come up before with Mixergy guests, etc.)
You can see from his linkedin that he went from undergrad straight to law school at NYU. He spent summers at law firms but never practiced and I don't believe that he's licensed to practice. He went to work in real estate but found his passion in startups. I believe he tried to start his own startup -- and learned a little Ruby in the process -- but the startup failed. He did some angel investing (he's independently wealthy as a Tisch and likely from his previous work history at law firms and in real estate), and was an early investor in Boxee. (Avner Rosen's talk at Techstars for a Day suggested that Dave was an early investor when they were struggling to raise money for their physical box concept, i.e., Dave was there before Boxee was cool.) He's otherwise made a few other good investments.
He met David Cohen at some event, approached him, and asked, "How about NYC?" Cohen as I recall said that he got that question all the time when Techstars was popping off, but Tisch was one of the few people that followed up on that and kept in touch. When Cohen thought seriously about doing NYC, it was Dave Tisch who he worked with so Dave was the logical choice to run the thing.
That said, Dave doesn't have the track record of someone like Brad Feld, but he's very enthusiastic, he's working very hard, and he's very bright. It seemed clear to me from Techstars for a Day NYC that Dave is running NYC -- he is the guy.
One of the most interesting thing about TechStars to me is that Jared Polis was a co-founder. He is one of the sharpest politicians in office today, in my opinion, and the first openly gay congressman to even be elected.
I can't find anything about his entrepreneurial history online. (Knowmore.com is a dead URL, archive.org shows nothing for the years he ran it, his name has never come up before with Mixergy guests, etc.)
I'm just curious about who he is.