About
John Chisholm (Twitter: @johndchisholm) has four decades of experience as an entrepreneur, CEO, and investor. He founded and for five years served as Chairman/CEO of Decisive Technology (now part of Google), publisher of the first desktop and client-server software for online surveys. Later, he founded and for eleven years served as Chairman/CEO of CustomerSat (now part of Confirmit), a leading provider of enterprise feedback management systems. Earlier he served in engineering, marketing, and management positions at General Electric, HP, Grid Systems, and Xerox. Today he heads John Chisholm Ventures, a San Francisco-based entrepreneurship advisory and investment firm.
He is a member of the MIT Corporation (board of trustees), past president and chair of the worldwide MIT Alumni Association, and a trustee of the Santa Fe Institute. He is the author of Unleash Your Inner Company: 10 Steps to Discover, Launch, and Scale Your Ideal Business and of Integral: A Mathematical Odyssey.
John holds bachelors and masters degrees in electrical engineering and computer science from MIT and an MBA from Harvard Business School. He writes and speaks frequently on how to cultivate and grow “Silicon Valleys” around the world and on what forms of regulation foster vs. stifle entrepreneurship, innovation, and economic growth. An avid mountain climber, he has summited Mounts Rainier, Shasta, Whitney, St. Helens, and live volcanoes in Chile and Indonesia.