Projects

• Dan leads the Cloud Native Computing Foundation.
• He has consulted for companies and advised startups focused on cloud, security, open source and enterprise software development.
• Some recent projects:
  • The Cloud Native Landscape
  • The 30 highest velocity open source projects
  • Why I recommend the Apache Software License
  • The CII Best Practices Badge
  • Presentation: A Brief History of the Cloud
  • Presentation: Migrating Legacy Monoliths to Cloud Native Microservices Architectures on Kubernetes

“CNCF executive director Dan Kohn said the broader story is that Kubernetes and containers are rapidly displacing virtualization as the go-to software deployment model”

— Fortune Magazine, August 2017

Bio

Dan is Executive Director of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation, which sustains and integrates open source technologies like Kubernetes. He also helped create and launch the Linux Foundation's Core Infrastructure Initiative to improve Internet security.

He previously served as CTO of several startups, including Spreemo, a healthcare marketplace, and Shopbeam, a shoppable ads company. Earlier, Dan was COO of the Linux Foundation. Collaborating closely with a board representing the whole technology industry, Dan helped build the LF into one of the top industry consortia.

Dan was a general partner at Skymoon Ventures, a $70 M seed-stage venture capital firm that created startups in semiconductors and telecom infrastructure. He co-founded and served as the initial CEO of Pedestal Networks, an innovative DSL equipment company (sold to UT Starcom); Dash Networks, the first Internet-enabled automotive GPS device (sold to RIM); and Habeas, an email accreditation company (sold to Return Path).

For the previous 5 years, Dan helped manage several telecom firms controlled by Craig McCaw, including XO Communications, Nextel (now Sprint), and Teledesic. He served as a key negotiator in transforming a $12 million portal outsourcing payment from Nextel to Netscape into a $600 million investment by Microsoft into Nextel. He conducted board-level presentations as part of investor and contract negotiations around the world, raising over $1.6 B.

Dan started his career as founder and CEO of NetMarket, one of the first Internet companies. In 1994, he led the development of the first music store on the web, including conducting the first secure commercial transaction, deploying the first commercial database-backed website, and implementing the first shopping cart. He later sold NetMarket to Cendant, a multi-billion dollar membership services company. Dan lives in Manhattan with his wife and two sons.

He can be reached at dan@dankohn.com.

Events

Upcoming Events

• Huawei Cloud Connect, Shanghai, 9/6/2017
• Software Circus, Amsterdam, 9/7-8/2017
• Open Source Summit NA, Los Angeles, 9/11-13/2017
• Alibaba Cloud Conference, Hangzhou, 10/10-13/2017
• DockerCon EU, Copenhagen, 10/16-18/2017
• Open Source Summit EU, Prague, 10/23-25/2017
• AWS Reinvent, Las Vegas, 11/27-30/2017
• CloudNativeCon + KubeCon NA, Austin, 12/6-8/2017
• Open Source Leadership Summit, Sonoma, 3/6-8/2018
• CloudNativeCon + KubeCon EU, Copenhagen, 5/2-4/2018

Past Speaking Events

• Open Source Summit Japan, Tokyo, 6/1-2/2017
• CloudNativeCon + KubeCon EU, Berlin, 3/29-30/2017
• CloudNativeCon + KubeCon NA, Seattle, 11/8-9/2016
• LinuxCon + ContainerCon EU, Berlin, 10/4-6/2016

“China today has this classic example of a second-mover advantage where they just didn’t have the couple decades of previous investment into proprietary technologies. So they’re building up from scratch today, and looking at best practices from around the world.”

— Architecht podcast, June 2017

Recent Tweets

Watch this 4 minute video (with sound) about my startup conducting the first secure purchase on the web in 1994
(November 2015)