Derek Dukes

I look at the world through my Product Guy lens and often ask 'how can we make this interaction better'. I have over 20 years of online & mobile consumer and ad tech experience. In my free time I'm passionate about food, cycling, politics, and photography.

In my most recent side project, Lazy Bear, I applied Lean Startup principles to open and scale a fine dining restaurant in San Francisco. We just received our second Michelin Star, and have sold out each month since we've been open.

I've had product roles at Yahoo!, where I was one of the first ten employees and Twitter. I'm also a seasoned entrepreneur having co-founded three companies, raised capital, and exited one to Google. Currently working at AWS with startup incubators Y Combinator, 500 Startups, Highway 1 and their cohorts of companies.

Current areas of interest include: apps for increasing offline friend interactions, crowdfunding, and how food + technology are changing traditional brick & mortar eateries and the food businesses.