I'm preparing for The Collision Conference, held May 5-6 in Las Vegas, and ramping up for the 200 speakers set to take stage. Collision prides itself in being one of the top tech conferences bringing together entrepreneurs, investors, innovators, and top managers—introducing huge corporations to seed startups. A startup competition, PITCH, brings together the hottest new companies with interested investors.
Here are some of the entrepreneurial speakers I'm looking forward to hearing at Collision this year:
John Zimmer, Co-Founder, Lyft: The disruption on the taxi industry and how people in our world are now driving themselves less can be attributed to a few key players, and one of them is Lyft. Thousands of startups are attempting to imitate what Lyft and Uber have done using similar revenue and service models and mobile technology. John Zimmer started the company with his co-founders in 2012 at age 28, and within three years has changed an entire industry.
Tony Hsieh, CEO, Zappos.com: Tony Hsieh has transformed the way companies do business with not only an affordable shoe e-commerce platform, but his forward-thinking company culture vision. He has written the handbook on how to keep employees happy, one of the keys to building the best organization that will serve customers.
Chris Wanstrath, CEO, GitHub: Recognizing a huge problem for programmers from his experience as a programmer at CNET, Chris Wanstrath uniquely understands the problems faced by startups. He bootstrapped, built and iterated, and saw 300 percent year-over-year growth, earning him a spot on Inc's 30 under 30 in 2013.
John Underkoffler, CEO, Oblong Industries: Remember the futuristic technology of Minority Report almost a decade ago? That technology has started to come into fruition due to the vision of John Underkoffler. Not only was he the technical advisor on the film, he created a company to build the technology that we are beginning to use and experience today. His vision and execution has been channeled into technology that brings executives together in conference rooms built as if it were 2030.
Kevin Chou, Co-Founder & CEO, Kabam : One of the leaders of the free-to-play models in mobile, Kabam understood early on the changes mobile would bring to gaming, and quickly set out to create amazing titles and develop a revenue model that has disrupted the entire video game industry. Kevin Chou has been named one the the "smartest people in tech" by Fortune, and has been part of the restructuring of gaming as we know it.
Bastian Lehmann, Co-Founder & CEO, Postmates: Postmates' vision to restructure local commerce and deliver nearly anything within one hour is sure to help local economies as well as empower the consumer. Business is changing as we know it, and Bastian Lehmann still supports the brick and mortar business while leveraging the nearby features of mobile.
Walter Driver, CEO, Scopley: Running one of the hottest new social gaming startups in Los Angeles, Walter Driver has recently raised $35 million to scale the touchscreen entertainment network to more indie developers to help monetize its game. Building revenue and raising money takes finesse, and Walter has brought Scopely huge success through his understanding on how to create a hit game, and to better monetize mobile.
Joe Hahn and Mike Shinoda, Co-Founders and Musicians, Machine Shop Ventures and Linkin Park: Yes, Collision has brought several celebrities to the conference, and the trend in L.A. and New York for actors and musicians is to get in the startup game. These two entrepreneurs have built a creative studio and think tank, and they work with the likes of Square, Microsoft, and Paragon Pictures on branding projects.
Photo credit: Collision
