Adam Freed is a Managing Partner at GSV Ventures who brings an unusually deep operator perspective to edtech investing, having served as CEO of Teachers Pay Teachers, COO of Etsy, and a global operations leader at Google before becoming a venture investor. He speaks 11 languages and positions himself as a "third-career" leader, which helps him relate to international founders, while also co-building the ASU+GSV Summit platform where he moderates conversations with global education leaders to surface emerging themes and founders for GSV.

• Dedicated to education technology and empowering educators through community driven marketplaces. As the former leader of Teachers Pay Teachers, there is a clear passion for building platforms that help teachers directly. A great example of this dedication is spending twelve hours straight in a seller forum just to listen to user suggestions and learn from the community.
• Prioritizes mission driven companies that balance financial success with positive social impact. There is a strong belief in picking a specific societal problem and dedicating a career to solving it. This is evident when praising companies like Etsy for demonstrating how to do well while doing good, and when traveling to universities across Japan to give presentations focused on making money while making meaning.
• Champions the sharing economy and the rise of the global micro entrepreneur. Platforms that allow individuals to monetize their skills and labor are a recurring theme, highlighted by observing how independent creators succeed in sharing models or by celebrating executive leadership milestones at gig economy platforms like TaskRabbit.