David Wurth

Chris Hollod has been a well-known figure in the L.A. venture capital ecosystem since becoming multi billionaire Ron Burkle’s venture partner in 2009. He also ran A-Grade Investments, a prolific venture fund with Ashton Kutcher, making early investments in a variety of consumer technology companies, including Uber, Airbnb, Pinterest, Square, Box, Shazam, Duolingo, and Spotify.

Sunday morning in late January. I’m sitting with my wife and our 13-month-old daughter. Texts start pouring in. There was a helicopter crash in Calabasas, miles from where I grew up. Reports that Kobe Bryant was on board. Three other people, then four. Then eventually nine altogether. No survivors. I run a media company. I trust the media. But I didn’t want to trust this. It couldn’t be true. I kept playing with my daughter. I looked at my wife; she could tell I was in shock. The texts didn’t stop.

Back in 2002, when I was in college, I joined MySpace for its intended use: to meet girls. The chatting, the music downloads, the photo sharing…I was all over it. Fast forward 17 years, and its co-founder, Chris DeWolfe has me addicted to another digital sensation: Panda Pop, the wildly popular mobile video game his company Jam City created that has users strategically popping their way to saving pandas.