Stephen Oskoui
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Stephen Oskoui | |
|---|---|
| Born | July 15, 1980 U.S. |
| Education | Stanford University |
| Occupation | Venture capitalist |
Stephen Oskoui is an American investor and venture capitalist who is managing partner and co-founder of Gigafund, a venture capital firm backing entrepreneurs globally. Gigafund makes long-term concentrated investments in founders and CEOs who are capable of growing with their companies and maximizing impact over a period of decades.
Personal life and education
[edit]Oskoui studied computer science at Stanford University. His accomplishments include publishing research in laser fusion and being named one of 40 Finalists in the acclaimed Westinghouse Science Talent Search.[1]
Career
[edit]Oskoui launched Gigafund together with Luke Nosek (co-founder of PayPal and Founders Fund). Before co-founding Gigafund, Oskoui was a venture partner at Founders Fund.
Prior to Founders Fund, Oskoui was founder and CEO of Smiley Media, a performance-based marketing company. Smiley raised no outside capital and grew into a two-time Inc. 500 company with $50 million in annual revenue. Oskoui was one of the first to apply A/B testing to run millions of marketing experiments. He built Smiley Media using a unique distributed team structure, recruiting hundreds of people from over 20 different countries.
As an angel investor, he made a $3 million investment in Rover and drove the mergers and acquisitions process that resulted in its merger with Revcontent.[2][3][4]
Political activities
[edit]Oskoui, Jeffrey Harmon, Abe Niederhauser, and Ladd Christensen co-founded Endorse Liberty, a Super PAC supporting Ron Paul.[5] Oskoui serves as president of the organization.[6] Oskoui helped convince Peter Thiel, the founder of PayPal, to donate over $2 million to Endorse Liberty.[7] In 2012, Oskoui donated $125,000 and provided $296,000 in in-kind media services.[8]
References
[edit]- ^ "Science Talent Search 1997 | Society for Science". 26 August 2019.
- ^ "PayPal co-founder Luke Nosek leaving Founders Fund, reportedly for SpaceX-focused fund".
- ^ "Internet ad firm is expanding in Austin".
- ^ "Smiley Media Inc - Company Profile and News".
- ^ Fox, Lauren (9 March 2012). "Paul Super PAC: We Will Continue to Support Paul". U.S. News & World Report. Retrieved 19 December 2013.
- ^ Doherty, Brian (24 January 2012). "Ron Paul: A SuperPAC Spends for Him in Florida, and Pursuing an Obama-like Delegate Strategy". Reason. Retrieved 10 July 2014.
- ^ Canham, Matt. "Utah-based super PAC supports Paul — not Romney". Salt Lake Tribune. Retrieved 19 December 2013.
- ^ Bravender, Robin (20 February 2012). "PayPal founder Peter Thiel donates $1.7M to Ron Paul PAC". Politico. Retrieved 19 December 2013.