Biographical Summary
Jon Burgstone was born in 1972 and currently works as a professional investor
and University professor. Burgstone serves as Managing Director of Symbol
Capital, a private investment partnership,
and is also appointed as Adjunct Professor of
Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. Before Symbol
Capital, Burgstone was Faculty Chair at the Center for Entrepreneurship & Technology at
the University of California Berkeley's College of Engineering.
Earlier in his career, Burgstone was CEO and co-founder of SupplierMarket, an internet software company serving global enterprises. SupplierMarket was acquired for $1.1B in the late summer of 2000 by Ariba, Inc and the product is now named Ariba Sourcing. Previously, Burgstone was a high-tech strategy consultant (semiconductor, online financial services and telecom), and began his career at Ford Motor Co.
Burgstone was born and raised in suburban Chicago, Illinois and graduated from Waubonsie Valley High School. He majored in engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and received a BS in Engineering. At UIUC he worked in the Engineering Psychology Research Laboratory studying human cognition for a program jointly sponsored by NASA and the National Science Foundation.
Burgstone also earned an MS in Engineering from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and an MBA from Harvard Business School. Burgstone received a 2006 Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Illinois Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering.
SupplierMarket
Jon Burgstone was co-founder and CEO of SupplierMarket.com and led the company's executive team. SupplierMarket developed and marketed innovative software that could help manufacturing companies streamline the sourcing of $100B's in products and services. The software enabled customers to more easily identify, qualify, select and negotiate with prospective vendors.
Investors
took notice of the concept. Sequoia Capital and Battery Ventures invested
$8MM of venture capital. Soon additional firms invested another $40MM.
The group included Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Company, Fenway Partners, Onex
Corporation, Fleet Equity Partners, Madison Dearborn Partners, Silicon Valley
Bank and several prominent individuals.
SupplierMarket grew quickly, adding 14,000 companies as buyers and suppliers. Customers realized cost savings ranging from 3% to 65% on purchases of many different products.
On March 2, 2000, the company filed an S1 registration statement with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. On June 28, 2000 the company announced a $1.1B merger agreement with Ariba, Inc. After the acquisition, the product was renamed Ariba Sourcing.
Center for Entrepreneurship & Technology at UC Berkeley
Burgstone served as the founding Faculty Chair of the Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology at UC Berkeley. During an interview, Burgstone explained, "We teach the entrepreneurial process and give students a set of tools to translate their technical and scientific skills into commercially viable ideas."
UC Berkeley recruited Burgstone to teach
Leadership & Organizational Behavior to engineers.
Students
approached him about learning entrepreneurship, and Burgstone discovered a need
for an entrepreneurship program focused on the requirements of engineers and
scientists, thus forming the Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology.
Founding board members of the CET include: Burgstone, Michael Marks of Kohlberg
Kravis Roberts & Company, Jim Davidson of Silverlake Partners, Tom Byers of
Stanford University, Allen Morgan of Mayfield, Rich Newton of UC Berkeley and
Stacey Lawson of UC Berkeley. Recently Ray Bingham of General Atlantic
Partners also joined the board, and Burgstone was appointed Board Chair.
Upon forming the CET, students oversubscribed classes by a ratio of four to one. Looking to expand, Burgstone recruited Ikhlaq Sidhu as Executive Director to lead and grow the CET. Sidhu had previously built a major entrepreneurship center at the University of Illinois. Through 2007, several thousand students have completed CET classes in entrepreneurship, marketing and finance.
The CET features a guest lecture series, workshops, network opportunities and a certificate of mastery. Another notable CET program is the annual Technology Breakthrough Competition. This contest seeks to identify the most commercially promising new technologies under development in UC Berkeley laboratories. Several start-up companies have been successfully founded by CET alumni, and many other alumni are working at a variety of interesting companies across Silicon Valley and beyond.
Symbol Capital, LLC
Currently Burgstone works as Managing Director of Symbol Capital, LLC a private investment partnership. The partnership's work involves Burgstone's research in value investing and behavioral finance. Due to SEC regulations, little information can be made publicly available about the firm.
Community Service and Additional Professional Activities
Burgstone serves on the Board of Visitors of the University of Illinois College of Engineering, the Board of Advisors to the Rock Center for Entrepreneurship at Harvard Business School and the Board of Trustees of the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive. He also Chairs the Board of Advisors for the UC Berkeley Center for Entrepreneurship & Technology.
Burgstone has advised numerous start-up companies and investment funds. He is the subject of two widely-taught Harvard Business School case studies. He has been an active supporter of organizations seeking to improve education and to expand human rights.
Mr. Burgstone has been written about in the Wall Street Journal, Barron's, featured on CNN and appeared in many other media outlets.
About this Website
I find that people occasionally conduct Internet searches on my name seeking information. I thought I'd save them the time, and summarize a number of biographical facts in one place.
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© 2007-2008 Jonathan Burgstone