Kosmix is a Guide to the Web. The site (www.kosmix.com) lets users explore the Web by topic, presenting a dashboard of relevent videos, photos, news, commentary, opinion, communities and links to related topics. Kosmix's categorization engine organizes the Internet into magazine-style topic pages, enabling people to navigate the Web even if they don't know exactly what they're looking for.
Headquartered in Mountain View, California, Kosmix was founded in 2005 by Venky Harinarayan and Anand Rajaraman. Harinarayan and Rajaraman were co-founders of Junglee, the first shopping search engine which was acquired by Amazon.com in 1998. They later created Amazon.com's Mechanical Turk. The two are also partners in Cambrian Ventures, a venture capital firm.
Kosmix is funded by Time Warner Investments, Accel Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Dag Ventures, private investor Ed Zander and Jeff Bezos' personal investment company, Bezos Expeditions.
Kosmix began as a vertical serach engine, initially introducing health site www.RightHealth.com as a proof-of-concept for the Kosmix approach to Web navigation. RightHealth is now the #2 health site on the Web, according to Hitwise. In June 2008, Kosmix expanded its focus from vertical to a complete horizontal play.
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Kosmix is hiring! Here are the details:
Member of Technical Staff-
Systems
Design, implement, and deploy high-performance, scalable
systems and algorithms for massive data storage and distributed
processing.
Qualifications
--BS/MS/Ph.D. in Computer Science, Computer
Engineering, Electrical Engineering or related fields
--Programming wizardry
in C/C++/Java/scripting (Perl, Python)
--Extensive UNIX system and network
programming experience
--Strong foundation in system design, software
architecture, web technologies
--Strong background in process design for
reliable systems
--Strong algorithm background, awareness of time and space
complexity
--Strong knowledge and keen interest in emerging tools and
technologies in the industry
--Expertise in Distributed/Scalable Systems and
Algorithms is a huge plus along with refereed publications in related
conferences
--Past experience handling large amounts of data on distributed
platforms is also a huge plus
--Working knowledge of standard tools for
optimizing and testing code
--Most important, we want self-motivated builders
with a real urge to change the world through their
creations
http://www.kosmix.com/html/join_us.html?action=applyToJobExt&accountId=224a8d6c1a3a8935bf1ceea1b27db1373bf6c982&jobCode=0069&jobTitle=Member+of+Technical+Staff-+Systems&jobSource=0
Our team has some of the best technology minds from industry and academia, devoted to making the Web intelligent through the power of categorization. We come from Amazon.com, Yahoo!, eBay, Inktomi, Bell Labs, IBM, Stanford University, Berkeley, University of Wisconsin, University of Texas and the Indian Institute of Technology.
Kosmix Executive Team
Venky Harinarayan
Co-founder
Venky Harinarayan and his business partner Anand Rajaraman co-founded Kosmix in 2005 with the vision to connect people to the information that makes a difference in their lives. Together with Anand, Venky developed the first ecommerce search engine, Junglee, which was acquired by Amazon.com in 1998 for $250 million. At Amazon, Venky and Anand created the company's search and marketplace business. In addition to Kosmix, Venky is a principal at Cambrian Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm. He is a graduate of Stanford University and the Indian Institute of Technology.
Anand Rajaraman
Co-founder
Anand Rajaraman and Venky Harinarayan co-founded Kosmix in 2005 with the vision of connecting people to information that makes a difference in their lives. In addition to being a co-founder of Kosmix, Anand Rajaraman is a consulting assistant professor in the Computer Science Department at Stanford University and a founding partner of Cambrian Ventures. Venky and Anand also co-founded Junglee, the company that pioneered internet comparison shopping, in 1996. After Amazon's acquisition of Junglee in 1998 for $250 million, Anand helped create Amazon's marketplace business, which today accounts for over 30% of Amazon's gross merchandise sales. Anand holds a bachelor's degree in Computer Science from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, and a PhD in Computer Science from Stanford University. On his blog Datawocky he discusses data mining techniques in search, social media, and advertising.
STS Prasad
Vice President, Service Management
As vice president of service management, STS Prasad oversees the Kosmix teams responsible for technical operations, ad operations and partners. STS has worked closely with Kosmix's co-founders in product management and technical roles at Junglee and Amazon.com. He was a co-founder and CTO of enterprise mobile software provider Aventeon, and held senior technical positions at Sybase and HCL. STS is a graduate of the Indian Institute of Technology and the University of Wisconsin.
Sri Subramaniam
Vice President, Engineering
Sri Subramaniam leads the Kosmix development team and is responsible for building Kosmix's technology platform. He has nearly 20 years of experience designing large-scale software architecture, advanced search technology and building technology teams. Prior to Kosmix, Sri spent four years as director of search at eBay, where he oversaw the development of three generations of search and categorization technology. He has held leadership roles in e-commerce startups Ventro and MarketFirst, and 3D Graphics Research at Sun Microsystems. Sri holds several patents in Search and 3D Graphics. Sri is a graduate of the Indian Institute of Technology and earned his MS from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
Srinivasan "Sesh" Seshadri
Chief Technology Officer
As chief technology officer, Srinivasan Seshadri ("Sesh") oversees the development of Kosmix's search and personalization technology. Prior to Kosmix, Sesh served as chief technology officer at Yahoo's Research and Development Center, based in Bangalore, India. Earlier in his career he founded life science informatics leader Strand Genomics (now Strand Life Sciences), and has held senior research positions at Bell Labs and Lucent Technologies. In addition to his research and industry contributions, Sesh also spent at six years as a faculty member in the Computer Science department at Indian Institute of Technology in Bombay. Sesh is a graduate of the Indian Institute of Technology and holds a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin.
Michelle Yee Sangster
Vice President, Business Development
Michelle Yee Sangster is vice president of business development at Kosmix. Michelle has spent the past 20 years building international Internet brands, both in the United States and in Europe. Prior to joining Kosmix, Michelle was a senior director of business development at Yahoo! She also directed business development and content monetization at search marketing pioneer Overture, which was acquired by Yahoo! in 2003. Michelle worked with Kosmix's founders at both Junglee and Amazon, and has held senior business development roles at WishClick, Cellectivity in the UK and Encyclopedia Brittanica. Michelle is a graduate of UCLA and holds an MBA from the Harvard Graduate School of Business.
Ravi N. Raj
Vice President, Products & GM, Owned & Operated Sites
Ravi Raj leads Kosmix's product team and manages the day-to-day operations of Kosmix sites: Kosmix.com and RightHealth.com. Ravi has more than 16 years of experience in product management. Prior to joining Kosmix in 2006, Ravi was senior director of product management at Yahoo!, where he specialized in search, social media and marketplace verticals. He also led product teams at AltaVista, Elance and SGI, and holds patents in sponsored search and e-commerce. Ravi is a graduate of the Indian Institute of Technology, and holds a Master of Science degree from the University of California, Irvine.
Peter Foster
Senior Vice President, Monetization
Peter Foster is responsible for overseeing Kosmix's revenue generation efforts as well as directing the day-to-day operations of the company's sales team. Peter joined Kosmix from Photobucket, where as senior vice president of sales he formulated strategy for direct sales and partnerships, growing revenue 300% and contributing to the company's acquisition by Fox Interactive Media. Prior to joining Photobucket, Peter led ValueClick Media's sales group, a team that generated annual revenues of more than $150 million. Peter also spent six years at MaxOnline (later acquired by Ask.com), where he was vice president of West Coast sales and the company's top salesperson from 2000 to 2002. He graduated with honors from Kenyon College.
Kosmix Board of Directors
Venky and Anand are joined by the following:
Theresia Gouw Ranzetta, Accel
Jonathan Miller
Ravi Mhatre, Lightspeed Venture Partners
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