# Josh Berman **Josh Berman** is a Los Angeles entrepreneur and investor. He co-founded the social network Myspace in 2003 and was its chief operating officer until it was sold to [[News Corporation]], then ran Slingshot Labs, News Corp's internet incubator. In 2010 he and [[Diego Berdakin]] left to start the online retailer [[BeachMint]]. Since 2016 he has invested through the venture firm Troy Capital Partners and Quid, a lender that makes loans to employees and investors backed by their shares in private companies. **Why he's on the map:** Berman is [[Diego Berdakin]]'s longtime business partner. Berdakin was the first donor to [[David Sacks]]'s political committee, the [[Purple Good Government PAC]], and the two men's careers, from Myspace and News Corp to BeachMint, trace the Los Angeles tech network that Berdakin and [[Sky Dayton]] came out of. ## Career - **Myspace and News Corp.** Berman was one of the founders of Myspace and its chief operating officer until the News Corp sale. He then became president of Slingshot Labs, a News Corp unit set up to start new internet businesses, where Berdakin was a senior executive. - **BeachMint.** The two left Slingshot in April 2010 and launched BeachMint that June with $5 million from venture investors. Berman was chief executive. In August 2014 [[Condé Nast]] merged its fashion magazine *Lucky* into a joint venture with BeachMint called The Lucky Group, with Berman as chief executive. The magazine stopped printing in June 2015. - **Investing.** In 2016 Berman co-founded Troy Capital Partners in Santa Monica, named for the University of Southern California's Trojans, and then Quid, which lends against shares in companies that have not yet gone public. Quid had raised about $420 million across two funds by 2022. ## Connections - [[Diego Berdakin]] · [[BeachMint]] · [[Purple Good Government PAC]] - [[News Corporation]] · [[Condé Nast]]