Former Yahoo Music GM Dave Goldberg Joins Benchmark Capital

Former Yahoo Music GM Dave Goldberg made waves in early 2006 when he urged major music labels to kill DRM to give music fans the flexibility to listen to music on any device that they own. It sounded crazy at the time, but later on Bill Gates made similar statements and eventually Apple convinced EMI to begin to sell DRM-free music. The industry is now simply waiting for the other big labels to fall into line as well. April 2, 2007 may be the day DRM died, but people like Dave Goldberg planted the seeds far earlier. You can hear more about Goldberg’s views on DRM and the online music business in general in our podcast interview with him earlier this year.

Goldberg left Yahoo in February. He’s now joined Benchmark Capital as an entrepreneur-in-residence. That means he’s likely going to begin working on a new startup. No word on whether it’s in the music space or not, but whatever it is, given Goldberg’s willingness to shake up established business models, it’s likely to be interesting. I’ll be talking to him later today and will hopefully have more details to share.