Ned Desmond is a senior operating partner at SOSV. In 2020, he founded and launched the virtual event Sight Tech Global. From 2012 to 8/2020 he was the COO of TechCrunch and Engadget under AOL then Oath, and finally Verizon Media. He was also responsible for CrunchBase from April 2012 until September 2015, when he spun out Crunchbase as a venture-backed startup, with Emergence as the lead investor. Previously he was the founder and president of GoSportn, an enthusiast media company, which launched GoFISHn.com and GoHUNTn.com. Prior to GoSportn, Desmond was head of digital at Time Inc. for six years, founder of eCompany Now (later merged with Business 2.0), and held senior management roles at Disney and Infoseek. He launched Infoseek Japan with Joi Ito, which was acquired in 2000 by Rakuten. He came to Silicon Valley in 1996 after working for nearly a decade in Asia as a correspondent for Time magazine.