David S. Rose

Brainstormer, Business leader, Business mentor, Change Agent, Connector, Educator/Teacher, Entrepreneur, Finance professional, Idea generator, Investor, Jewish, Parent, Real Estate professional, Startup, Technologist

I'm a decades-long TEDster, probably best known among the conference crowd for my main-stage three minutes on railroad cabooses, and my TED University Talks (now on TED.com and YouTube). When not at TED, I'm a serial entrepreneur and active angel investor, based in New York. As an inveterate startup guy, I’ve founded half a dozen companies since my first at age 10, and as ‘super angel’ technology investor, I have funded over 100 others. I am the founder and Executive Chairman of Gust, the entrepreneurial finance industry's infrastructure platform; founder and CEO of the US Real Estate Market, author of The Startup Checklist: 25 Steps to a Scalable, High-Growth Businessand Angel Investing: The Gust Guide to Making Money & Having Fun Investing in Startups; founder and Chairman Emeritus of New York Angels, one of the leading angel groups on the East Coast; Managing Principal of Rose Tech Ventures, an early-stage ‘super angel’ fund specializing in Internet-based business; and a Partner in True Global Ventures (an international super-angel venture capital fund). I’ve been involved in the development of the Silicon Alley technology community in New York for many decades, including working with online data services in the 1970s (Sysop of several Compuserve forums, if anyone still remembers that term), founding an early personal computer training company in the 1980s (the Computer Classroom), a wireless data information network in the 1990s (AirMedia Live), an international angel investing platform in the 2000s (Angelsoft, now Gust.com) and an institutional capital markets platform for commercial real estate in the 2020s (USREM). In 2001, after multiple careers in real estate development, Internet technology and the US government, I founded Rose Tech Ventures, through which I have provided investment capital and (where appropriate) business mentoring, to over 100 promising early stage companies, leading Forbes to describe me as "New York's Archangel", and I spend quite a bit of time speaking at business schools including Harvard, Yale, Columbia and NYU. One of the startups I'm proudest to have been involved with is Singularity University, the postgraduate program and think tank in exponentially accelerating technologies, founded by Ray Kurzweil and Peter Diamandis, that launched at TED over a decade ago. I'm an Associate Founder of SU along with Ray and Peter, and as the Founding Track Chair for Finance, Entrepreneurship & Economics I had the privilege of creating an exciting and productive future-focused entrepreneurship program that has spawned dozens of companies that have raised hundreds of millions of dollars. It was at Singularity University that I first began studying and teaching on the Future of Work, with one of the original SU classes being "No More Companies, No More Jobs: On the Way to a World Without Work". US Real Estate Market, my latest venture, is an innovative capital markets platform for institutional investors in fractional commercial real estate, founded and funded by major players in the real estate and securities industries. Gust, my other day job, built and operates the global collaboration infrastructure for the early stage entrepreneurial economy, pioneering the Company as a Service market and connecting over a million startup companies with 85,000+ investors I serve on the Boards of Directors of companies including KoolSpan, Inc. (network security technology) and Moven (enterprise-grade personal finance applications), and was the first investor in, and Chairman of, JUMP Bikes (acquired by Uber), Comixology (acquired by Amazon), Panjiva (acquired by S&P Global) and Pond5 (acquired by Accel). I co-founded the AREA real estate technology incubator in New York City, was Mentor of the Year at NYU Stern Business School, and was nicknamed 'The Pitch Coach' by BusinessWeek for my training of entrepreneurs seeking funding from venture capitalists and angel investors (you may have come across my TEDtalk on the subject, which has had well over a million views to date). I am a native New Yorker, with a BA (in Urban Affairs) from Yale, an MBA (in Real Estate Finance) from Columbia Business School and an honorary D. Eng, from Stevens Institute of Techology. I'm a graduate of the New York City public school system and Horace Mann High School. And just to round out the ED portions of my tED profile, my avocation is the archaic art and craft of letterpress printing. I am past President of The Typophiles, a member of the American Antiquarian Association and The Authors Guild, and was curator of the National Arts Club's Book Arts Studio. I'm also a book collector with an extensive collection on the history and art of the book, and run what for many years was the most popular site on the web on the subject of Letterpress Printing.

My wife and kids, the effects of exponential technological growth, letterpress printing, entrepreneurship, real estate development, train travel, democracy, sushi, mentoring, effective presentations, urban planning, book collecting, New York, Web 2.0; basically...everything

Most investors look for the following ten 'must-haves' (pretty much in this order) in their search for the Perfect Entrepreneur: Integrity, Passion, Startup Experience, Domain Expertise, Functional Skills, Leadership, Commitment, Vision, Realism and 'Coachability'.

Angel investing, entrepreneurship, Exponential technologies, Letterpress printing, Venture capital pitch coaching

I have the privilege of being part of what is believed to be the largest (and only three generation) TED family, as my parents, spouse, daughter, siblings, aunt, uncle, and cousins are also TEDsters.

Letterpress Printing