Larry Kramer

Larry Kramer


Website: cscape.wordpress.com
Tiburon, California, United States
Accredited investor
Member since September 17, 2007
Quote
Living at the intersection of old and new media Quote_down
  • About
Investor interests
Credentials Accredited Investor, Qualified Purchaser
Education
1974 Harvard University , MBA , MBA
1992 Syracuse University , BS , Magazine Journalism/Political Science

I am a(n):

Entrepreneur, Media Executive and Consultant

If you're an entrepreneur or corporate innovator, why?

I'm bursting with ideas!

My favorite startups:

Marketwatch.com, Klout, Poltico, WallStreetCheatSheet.com, Minyanville.com, Facebook, Quantcast,

What's most frustrating and rewarding about entrepreneurship/innovation?

Fundraising and trying to keep your investors on the same wavelength is difficult. Having to constantly resell your idea to investors, employee and customers is also tough. Watching a deal die five times before you get it to happen....that's loads of fun....

Rewarding is watching the company you created give jobs and opportunities to people, and watching those people grow with it. Creating wealth for people is always terrific

What's the No. 1 mistake entrepreneurs/innovators make?

They don't get enough money. They don't try to account for what they can't anticipate.

What are the top three lessons you've learned as an entrepreneur?

1.) Whatever money you plan to raise, double it.
2.) Be the BEST partner you can be to everyone you work with. Understand what they want out of the relationship and go out of your way to give it to them.
3.) Don't put off tough decisions.

Full bio

 Larry Kramer is an adjunct professor of Media Management at the Newhouse School of Communications at Syracuse University. He is also a media consultant and author of C-Scape, a book on the changing landscape for media and related industries for Harper Collins (published Nov., 2010).

            He sits on the board of directors of Discovery Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: DISCA), American Media Inc., Freedom Communications Inc., Answers.com (NASDAQ: ANSW), BlackArrow, Inc. (Chairman) and Harvard Business School Publishing, and serves on the Advisory Boards to the Newhouse School (chairman), Minyanville.com, Crossboarders.tv and Jib Jab Media Inc.  He was a founding board member and former Chairman of The Online Publishers Association.

From March 2005 until November 2006, he served as the first President of CBS Digital Media, reporting directly to Leslie Moonves.  In this role, Kramer created a new division that put together all new media operations for the network, including online, interactive and wireless initiatives. He had oversight over and launched several websites including CBS.com, CBSNews.com, CBS SportsLine.com and StarTrek.com. While there, he created March Madness on Demand (the web broadcast of the NCAA Basketball Tournament), put CBS TV shows on the web, and created distribution partnerships with Google, Amazon, Apple I-tunes, Yahoo and Verizon for CBS content.  He served as an Advisor to CBS until March, 2008. After leaving CBS He was Senior Advisor of Polaris Venture Partners from Jan 2008 until January 2010.

Prior to joining CBS, Kramer was Chairman, CEO and Founder of MarketWatch, Inc. (NASDAQ: MKTW), also known as CBS MarketWatch, until its sale to Dow Jones for $528 million in January 2005. He created the company as an LLC with Data Broadcasting Corp. and CBS, launching in October 1997, taking it public in January 1999, and making three acquisitions to build the business along the way. 

He had joined Data Broadcasting Corp. as Vice President in 1994, following its acquisition of his first startup, DataSport.  As founder, president and executive editor of DataSport Inc. from 1991 to 1994, he created SporTrax, a hand-held sports information monitor, which was a subscription product launched under a marketing agreement with The Sporting News.

Prior to founding DataSport, Kramer spent more than 20 years in journalism as a reporter and editor. He started his career in 1974 as a reporter for the San Francisco Examiner. In 1977, he became a financial reporter for the Washington Post. In 1980, the Post promoted him to executive editor of the Trenton (N.J.) Times. In 1982, he returned to the Post to serve first as assistant to Executive Editor Benjamin C. Bradlee and later as assistant managing editor and metro editor.  In 1986, he returned to the San Francisco Examiner as its editor.  In 1991, he left the Examiner to become an entrepreneur and launched DataSport and then Marketwatch.com.

While a journalist, he won several awards for reporting, including the National Press Club Award, The Associated Press Award for news writing and The Gerald Loeb award for business reporting. His staffs

He is a graduate of Harvard University (masters of business administration) and Syracuse University (bachelors of science in journalism and political science).. Kramer has been a lecturer at several universities, including the Harvard Business School, Syracuse University, University of Pennsylvania, UC Berkeley, NYU, Columbia University, Stanford University and Emory University.  He served a two-year term as a Pulitzer Prize juror.

8 Auburn Ct., Tiburon, CA 94920 | 160 W66th St., Apt 36G, New York, NY 10023 |  415-385-6397 (M)

lkramer@gmail.com