MENLO PARK, CA (CelebrityAccess MediaWire) — Former vice president and general manager of Yahoo Music, and founder of Launch Media, David Goldberg has joined venture capital firm Benchmark Capital as an Entrepreneur in Residence.
Goldberg founded online music delivery company Launch Media in 1994, and sold it to Yahoo in 2001. He will seek out ideas in the music industry and other consumer music business for Benchmark.
Goldberg recently made headlines by criticizing digital rights management, saying that DRM is hurting the music system, rather than solving a problem.
While at Yahoo!, Mr. Goldberg led the company’s global music operations and was responsible for building Yahoo! Music into the Internet’s number one music destination During his tenure, traffic increased from two million to 25 million unique users per month, and 4 billion music videos were streamed in 2006 alone. In addition, LAUNCHcast Radio became the number one Internet radio service, and Mr. Goldberg was named one of Billboard Magazine’s top power players in digital music.
“Dave is an accomplished entrepreneur, an influential music industry executive, and a driving force in the online music industry,” said Bruce Dunlevie, general partner at Benchmark Capital. “As a pioneer in digital media, he experienced first hand the opportunities and challenges faced by consumers, advertisers, artists, and media companies as the music industry moved online. The lessons learned will prove invaluable to us as we work to identify the technologies, trends, and companies that hold the greatest promise for tomorrow.” –by CelebrityAccess Staff Writers
