Ned Desmond is the COO of TechCrunch General Manager of AOL Tech and Engadget. He was also responsible for CrunchBase from April 2012 until September 2015, when Crunchbase spun out of AOL/Verizon to become a standalone, venture-backed company, in partnership with Emergence Capital. 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.