RS
About
Russ co-founded Yelp Inc. in July 2004 with former colleague and friend Jeremy Stoppelman. Prior to Yelp, Russ was one of the early employees and the lead software architect at PayPal. He led a team of top engineers on critical projects related to security, scalability, stability, and internationalization as the company scaled rapidly. Following his time at PayPal, Russ joined Max Levchin's (co-founder of PayPal) incubator, where he teamed up with Jeremy. Russ holds a B.S. in computer science from the University of Illinois.
Position in the VCSift Database
- • 1 investors hold the Founder and Chief role in VCSift. Russel Simmons is one of them.
- • 7,285 investors are based in San Francisco, California, United States.
Data sourced from 410,343 investor profiles. Updated May 2026.
Investment Focus
- Stages
- seed
- Location
- San Francisco, US
Contact Information
linkedin.com/in/••••••••
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