Ben Ling

Ben is an investment partner at Khosla Ventures, where he focuses on consumer, Internet, mobile, marketplace, SaaS and consumer health businesses. Since joining the firm, he’s led investments in Academia.edu, Canary, HackerRank and Tapingo, among many others. Previously, Ben served in senior operating roles at Google, YouTube and Facebook. He also is an active angel investor with early stakes in Square, Palantir, Quora and PracticeFusion. Further, Ben served as an advisor to both Pinterest and Pulse.

While at Google, he served as senior director of search and local business products, which included overseeing Google Images, Videos, Books, News and Finance. At YouTube, Ben was senior director of partnerships and platform, where he was responsible for music, movies, sports and news, as well as mobile, television and API partnerships. In his first role at Google, he was the founder and general manager of Google’s commerce group, which includes Google Wallet and Google Shopping.

At Facebook, Ben was the first director of the Facebook platform and oversaw the development of the company’s developer ecosystem. He also led product, marketing, developer operations and partner solutions. Ben played a crucial role in developing Facebook Connect, which helped grow Facebook across the web.

Ben holds a bachelor’s of science degree in electrical engineering and computer science from the University of California, Berkeley. He also holds a master’s degree and doctor of philosophy degree in computer science from Stanford University. Ben is a Department of Defense fellow and a recipient of the University of California, Berkeley’s Bechtel achievement award, which distinguishes the top graduating student from its college of engineering.