Barry Wilson
Chief Operating Officer
EC2, Annenberg Incubator Project, USC
For fledgling companies that want to get ahead in the Internet world, Barry Wilson is a man to know. Wilson is chief operating officer for EC2, the well-respected Annenberg Incubator Project at USC.
Wilson is one of four gatekeepers who determine which start-ups get into the incubator. (The others are Executive Director Jon Goodman, Marketing Director Chimara Russo, and Technical Director Michael Goay.) As a veteran venture capitalist, Wilson advises the 16 companies in the incubator to plot their future and gain access to the venture capital spigot.
“Because he’s so involved on the funding side, he makes sure the gate stays open once the companies get in,” said Rojiit Shukla, president and chief executive of the Los Angeles Regional Technology Alliance, an industry trade group.
The Annenberg Incubator Project allows multimedia and other high-tech companies to collaborate with the USC schools of Engineering, Cinema-Television and the Annenberg School for Communication. It was launched in 1994 with a $120 million grant from publishing magnate and philanthropist Walter H. Annenberg.
Wilson, 46, is a 15-year veteran of the tech venture-capital business. Over that span, he has alternated between his native Michigan and California. In the early 1980s, he worked for a high-tech venture fund in San Francisco. He then returned to Michigan and started his own investment company catering to mid-tech companies. He sold his interest in that company two years ago and returned to California.
“At the time, I was trying to decide between Northern and Southern California. It became clear to me that a lot of future action was going to be in Southern California, especially in content and multimedia space,” Wilson said.
One of his former partners introduced him to Goodman and, about a year ago, he joined EC2 as its business advisor.
“The idea of an incubator tied to a university was appealing, because that’s where I’d get to deal with both the content and the enabling technologies,” he said.
Wilson sees his job as helping to position the companies in EC2 for future success. Often, that means telling companies that their “great new idea” is already being worked on by several other people. Those companies, he said, often need to reposition themselves.
“It’s very challenging. With the Internet, nobody is quite sure where we’re going to end up. It’s like the stage between Alan Shepard and John Glenn, where the end game is trying to land a man on the moon,” he said.
Howard Fine
