大衛·弗里德伯格

Google

After several years in investment banking and private equity, Friedberg joined Google in March 2004 as one of the first 1,000 employees and a founding member of Google’s Corporate Development group.[9] As Corporate Development and Business Product Manager, Friedberg helped run Google's online advertising platform, AdWords, and negotiated acquisitions and worked with Google co-founder Larry Page.[10]

The Climate Corporation

In 2006, he founded his first company, WeatherBill, to create and buy custom weather insurance online. Friedberg was still working at Google as a business product manager when the idea for the company came to him.[11] He was driving past the Bike Hut in San Francisco and seeing sales slump on rainy days.[12] The thought occurred to him that the impact of weather on a business must be a big problem.

WeatherBill secured funding from Founders Fund, Khosla Ventures, Google Ventures, NEA, Index Ventures and Atomico.[13] In 2011, Friedberg changed WeatherBill's name to The Climate Corporation.[14] The Climate Corporation focused on offering farmers weather insurance and the climate.com service to help them track, analyze, and make field-specific decisions on their farms to improve farming outcomes. On 5 October 2011, Friedberg gave his Entrepreneurship Gives Life Meaning lecture[15] at Stanford.

In October 2013, Monsanto announced that it was acquiring The Climate Corporation for about $1.1 billion.[16] Friedberg joined Monsanto's Executive Team after the acquisition and in 2016 shifted to an advisory role.[17]

The Production Board

In 2016, Friedberg began talking with Larry Page about a way to build and finance more startups focused on food, agriculture, decarbonization and life sciences.[18] Through parent company Alphabet, Page agreed to help finance a holding company that Friedberg would operate.[19] Friedberg founded The Production Board (TPB) in 2016.[20]

TPB works with scientists, entrepreneurs, and business experts with the objective of solving the biggest problems facing humanity, including climate change.[21] TPB portfolio businesses include Pattern Ag, Ohalo, Culture Biosciences, Triplebar Bio, Supergut and Cana.[18] In July 2021, Friedberg announced that The Production Board raised $300 million from Alphabet, Baillie Gifford, Allen & Co., BlackRock, Koch Disruptive Technologies and Morgan Stanley's Counterpoint Global.[18]

Boards of directors and other roles

Friedberg is the founder of Metromile and served as Chairman of Metromile's Board of Directors during its early years.[22] He is also an angel investor in various technology, food, agriculture, and life sciences startups. In 2014, he purchased Canadian quinoa supplier NorQuin, North America's largest supplier of quinoa.[23] In 2022, Above Food Corp. acquired Norquin[24] and appointed Friedberg to Above Food's Innovation Advisory Council.[25]