#41 Investor Chat: Sean O'Sullivan + Jeff Hoffman - A Few Things - 30 Min - a podcast by James Barrood

Jeff is an award-winning global entrepreneur, proven CEO, worldwide motivational speaker, bestselling author, Hollywood film producer, a producer of a Grammy Award winning jazz album, and executive producer of an Emmy Award winning television show. In his career, he has been the founder of multiple startups, he has been the CEO of both public and private companies, and he has served as a senior executive in many capacities. Jeff has been part of a number of well-known successful startups, including Priceline.com/Booking.com, uBid.com and more. ?Jeff is the CEO of Driving Force Enterprises, a strategic consulting firm that teaches exponential growth to business owners and entrepreneurs, as well as teaching innovation strategies to corporations and governments worldwide. 

Jeff serves on the boards of companies in the US, Europe, the Middle East, South America, Africa, and Asia. He supports entrepreneurs and small businesses worldwide. He is the Chairman of the Global Entrepreneurship Network, which works with entrepreneurs in 180 countries, as well as being a founding board member of The Unreasonable Group, whose startup companies have operations in 185 countries and have raised over $4 billion in funding. He is also the Global Chairman of Dream Tank, a worldwide youth problem solving network. Jeff supports the White House, the State Department, United Nations, and similar organizations internationally on economic growth initiatives and entrepreneurship programs. 

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Sean is the founder and managing partner of SOSV which has invested in over 900 startups, investing about $65 million per year in the 150 startups that go through its global accelerators annually which help create over $2 billion in new market capitalization every year. Recognized in 2017 as the world’s #1 most active global early stage investor and the #2 most active global seed investor*, SOSV’s accelerator model takes a small initial stake in startups and provides a framework and community where startups get further and faster than they could on their own. SOSV runs the world’s most active accelerators in hardware (HAX), life sciences (IndieBio/RebelBio), disruptive food (Food-X), and Asia cross-border startups (Chinaccelerator/MOX). As of 2019, SOSV is in the top 6% of venture capitalists globally based on return an investment (returns over 20 years average 38% Net IRR). 

O’Sullivan’s first company, MapInfo, grew to a $200 million public company with over 1,000 employees, and popularized street mapping on computers. His first internet company, NetCentric, developed many concepts in internet computing, and he is credited as the co-creator of the term “cloud computing”. Sean founded JumpStart International, a leading humanitarian organization in conflict zones, in the 2000s, where he oversaw over 3,500 staff at the height of the organization during the Iraq conflict. He is also a primary supporter of such organizations such as Coderdojo (a global network of coding clubs that 50,000 kids attend every week) and Khan Academy (used by 15 million students to learn every month). He’s on the board Khan Academy, I-ASC, and a number of private companies. 
 

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