Entrepreneur, Executive, Investor
Greater Los Angeles Area
- Current
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- Venture Advisor at Accel Partners
- Chief Strategy Officer/Executive Strategic Advisor at RealNetworks
- Past
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- President at Disney Online
- president at Disney Online
- CEO at After Hours Software
- president at after hours software
- Software Engineer at Apple Computer
- Lecturer at Stanford University
- Education
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- University of California, Los Angeles
- California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo
- Recommended
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11 people have recommended Richard - Connections
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466
connections
- Industry
- Internet
- Websites
Richard Wolpert’s Summary
Mr. Wolpert has founded several successful technology companies which have gone on to be acquired by industry giants such as Adobe, RealNetworks, and HP. In addition Mr Wolpert has served in executive operations roles including as President of Disney Online and Chief Strategy Officer of RealNetworks. Mr. Wolpert is also an angel investor having invested in over 30 technology companies.
Richard Wolpert’s Experience
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Venture Advisor
Accel Partners
(Partnership; 51-200 employees; Venture Capital & Private Equity industry)
April 2006 — Present (3 years 8 months)
Mr. Wolpert serves as a Venture Advisor to Accel Partners focusing on the consumer internet and digital media areas. He has worked closely with Accel on a number of their investments in this space.
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Chief Strategy Officer/Executive Strategic Advisor
RealNetworks
(Public Company; 1001-5000 employees; RNWK; Internet industry)
October 2000 — Present (9 years 2 months)
Mr Wolpert first joined RealNetworks as a strategic advisor in late 2000. During the first two years of his involvement with Real he helped formulate the strategy to pivot the company from that of a technology licensing business to a consumer services company.
By early 2003 Mr. Wolpert was promoted to Chief Strategy Officer and became a full time employee with the company. During 2003 and 2004 Mr Wolpert was responsible for all of RealNetworks consumer businesses including Rhapsody, RealPlayer and Real Arcase and during this time grew those businesses from a run rate of under $100M to profitable businesses with a run rate of more than $250M in under two years.
In 2005 Mr Wolpert moved back into the part time role of Executive Strategic Advisor where he helps coordinate the companies strategy and acts as a business negotiator for key RealNetworks partnerships and deals including the $761M settlement with Microsoft. -
Board Member
MusicNet
(Internet industry)
2001 — 2003 (2 years )
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Board
GameSpy
(Internet industry)
2000 — 2002 (2 years )
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Partner
Yucaipa Companies & Michael Ovitz
(Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Investment Management industry)
July 1998 — September 2000 (2 years 3 months)
Mr. Wolpert was hired as a Partner in the Yucaipa companies focusing on taking Yucaipa's billion dollar financial expertise and success into the digital and Internet arenas. Mr Wolpert worked directly for Ron Burkle and Michael Ovitz while in this capacity.
During this time Mr. Wolpert lead the investment strategy and execution of several investments including Alliance Entertainment Corporation (since merged with NASDAQ: SORC), GameSpy (since Acquired by Fox Interactive), and Talk City (which subsequently had a successful IPO). -
President
Disney Online
(Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; DIS; Entertainment industry)
December 1995 — July 1998 (2 years 8 months)
Mr Wolpert was hired as the founding Senior Vice President of Technology for the Disney Online group at the Walt Disney Company. Mr Wolpert was quickly promoted to Executive Vice President and soon thereafter President of Disney Online.
While at Disney Mr Wolpert was responsible for building the team and launching most of Disney's early Internet businesses including Disney.com, the Disney Stores Online, Family,com and Disney's Daily Blast, the first children's subscription service for the Internet -
president
Disney Online
(Public Company; Internet industry)
1995 — 1998 (3 years )
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CEO
After Hours Software
(Privately Held; 51-200 employees; Computer Software industry)
July 1986 — June 1994 (8 years )
Mr. Wolpert was the founder and CEO of After Hours Software from its inception in 1986 through its sale to Aldus/Adobe in 1993.
After Hours Software began its life as a services organization providng customized Macintosh Development to some of Apples biggest customers at that time including American Airlines, NBC, and the Los Angeles Rams.
In 1989 After Hours Software pivoted itself to a consumer software publishing company. It realeased its first Consumer Product, TouchBase, in 1990. TouchBase quickly became the top selling personal address book for the Macintosh and won many industry awards including MacWorld Magazines World Class Award.
After Hours Software followed up its debut product with DateBook, a multi user calendar system for the Macintosh. Togther Touchbase and DateBook became the leading Personal Information Management (PIM) software for the Macintosh.
After Hours Software was sold to Aldus in June of 1993 just prior to Aldus becoming acquired by Adobe -
president
after hours software
(Internet industry)
1986 — 1994 (8 years )
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Software Engineer
Apple Computer
(Public Company; 501-1000 employees; AAPL; Computer Hardware industry)
July 1984 — July 1986 (2 years 1 month)
As his first job out of School Mr. Wolpert worked for Apple Computer Inc. as a software developer. He worked in the Developer tools group and focused mostly on the product called Macintosh Programmers Workshop which was the first development environment for the Macintosh
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Lecturer
Stanford University
(Privately Held; 10,001 or more employees; Higher Education industry)
September 1985 — June 1986 (10 months)
While working at Apple Mr. Wolpert recognized the need to expose the Macintosh and its development environment to college students in order to increase the amount of software being developed for the Macintosh. Mr. Wolpert created the class by having Apple agree to donate Macintosh Hardware to the school in exchange for the school beginning to offer a course on How to Program for the Macintosh, CS193C. Mr. Wolpert served as the Instructor for that course for its first year
Richard Wolpert’s Education
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University of California, Los Angeles
BS , Math & Computer Science , 1980 — 1984
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California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo
Richard Wolpert’s Contact Settings
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