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Startup insider Kent Lindstrom explores the reality behind the Silicon Valley headlines as he sits down with the established veterans and up-and-comers who are shaping the way we view the world online and beyond. Topics include technology trends, startups, Silicon Valley politics, women in silicon valley and more. Learn the histories of each guest and be enlightened by their area of expertise. New episode released each Tuesday at Noon, Pacific Time.
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Something Ventured -- Silicon Valley Podcast
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154 Vern Howard: Hallo's CEO is NOT Your Deliveryman
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Vern Howard’s story is remarkable. Vern was a math prodigy who left high school early, when he tested into Virginia Commonwealth University to study Computer Science and Math. He paid his way through school by teaching math and serving as a janitor on campus. He went on to sell men’s suits, which taught him the art of selling. After joining Capital…
An episode in which I thank each of the 2020 guests. A podcast first (probably). I briefly recall – fondly – a bit of each of the 2020 episodes. Is it interesting? I think so. Can I do it in one take? Turns out, yes. Enjoy, and thank you for listening. Marco Zappacosta, Thumbtack Founder Keller Fitzsimmons, “Lost in Startuplandia” Author Jeff Macph…
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Something Ventured -- Silicon Valley Podcast
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152 Stacey Bishop of Scale Venture Partners On Ascending the Venture Ladder and the Rise of "All Raise"
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Stacey Bishop is a partner at Scale Venture Partners where she invests in “business applications driving the Intelligent Connected World”. She currently serves on the Board of Directors of companies like Abstract, Airspace, Demandbase, Extole, Lever, and Textio. Stacey is a founding member of All Raise – an organization frequently mentioned on Some…
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Something Ventured -- Silicon Valley Podcast
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151 Fortune’s Jeff John Roberts on “Kings of Crypto” and the Rise of Coinbase
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In 2013, Fortune’s Jeff Roberts visited "Satoshi Square" in New York. It was the name of the location where a group of crypto anarchists and Wall Street traders bought and sold Bitcoin in the open air. Since that day, Jeff became fascinated with Bitcoin and new forms of money. That fascination led him to write the new book “Kings of Crypto: One Sta…
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Something Ventured -- Silicon Valley Podcast
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150 Hooman Radfar: The Rise of the ‘Business-of-One’
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Hooman Radfar is co-founder and CEO of Collective, an online back-office platform designed for freelancers, consultants and other ‘businesses-of-one’. He is also a Venture Partner at Expa, a San Francisco-based start-up venture firm and studio where he was a founding partner (along with Uber Co-Founder Garrett Camp). Previously, he was co-founder a…
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Something Ventured -- Silicon Valley Podcast
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149 Fabrice Grinda: 4 Incredible Stories from the OLX and FJ Labs Co-Founder
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Fabrice Grinda is a wildly successful entrepreneur and investor. In this episode he recounts in detail 4 stories that any entrepreneur – any person, really – will find fascinating. The first is the story of building one of Europe’s first marketplaces before eBay got there – and what happens when you turn down $100 million for your company. The seco…
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148 Jaclyn Hester: Foundry Group’s New Partner!
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Jaclyn Hester has just become a Partner at Foundry Group. So first, “Congratulations, Jaclyn”. Jaclyn joined Foundry Group – the Boulder-based tech company and venture fund investor -- after a few years at big law firms. As a lawyer, she worked on everything from startup formation and financing to large M&A processes. During graduate school at CU B…
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147 Sarah Leary: Nextdoor’s Co-founder Becomes a VC
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There are only so many iconic social networks in the world – and Nextdoor is one of them. While perhaps not as fast-growing as Facebook or even LinkedIn, Nextdoor has steadily become the hub for neighborhoods around the world. Sarah Leary founded Nextdoor, along with Nirav Tolia, Prakash Janakiraman, and David Wiesen. In this episode, Sarah tells t…
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146 Trae Vassallo: Defying Gravity in Silicon Valley
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Trae Vassallo is co-founder and partner at Defy, a venture capital firm she built with Neil Sequeira. She was previously a general partner at Kleiner Perkins. Trae made her way to Silicon Valley from…rural Minnesota. As a girl, Trae fell in love with coding – on an Apple II. She went, sight unseen, to Stanford University, where she studied mechanic…
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145 William Davidow: “Civilization is Going Through Its Third Phase Change”
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William Davidow is a Silicon Valley pioneer, former Intel VP, and renowned venture capitalist. He is author of the new book, with tech journalist Michael Malone, THE AUTONOMOUS REVOLUTION: Reclaiming the Future We’ve Sold to Machines (Berrett-Koehler, February 18, 2020). It’s a provocative look at how to safeguard humanity from our autonomous futur…
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144 Rob Chesnut: Airbnb’s Former Chief Ethics Officer on Intentional Integrity
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Rob Chesnut is an advisor to Airbnb, where he was previously Chief Ethics Officer and general counsel. His recently released book is Intentional Integrity: How Smart Companies Can Lead An Ethical Revolution. Rob started his career as a federal prosecutor, but decided he could do more good in the world by working for companies like eBay and Chegg. E…
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143 Deena Shakir of Lux Capital on her Amazing Journey, The Post-COVID Future
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Deena Shakir is a partner at Lux Capital, a venture capital firm that manages more than $2 billion. She is particularly interested in entrepreneurs building breakthrough companies enabling human and environmental health, access, and productivity. While her immediate background before joining Lux sounds familiar – she was a partner at GV (previously…
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142 Wag's CEO Garrett Smallwood on Pets in the Time of COVID-19
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Garrett Smallwood was recently promoted to CEO of Wag Labs, the popular on-demand dog-walking service backed by venture firms from Freestyle Capital to Softbank. New York Times said of the company “"Most dog owners should consider installing Wag on their phones just to have as a backup option. It is the best-designed and most efficient app for summ…
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141 Domm Holland: The Fast CEO on Guiding a Rocket Ship Through a Pandemic
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Fast.co has raised over $20 million from firms like Kleiner, Index and Stripe. It bills itself as the world’s fastest checkout – one click, no passwords. A fascinating but typical story, such as it is, in Silicon Valley. But then there’s this: Domm didn’t go to Stanford. He isn’t even from the US. He’s from Australia, where his first business was…a…
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140 Brad Feld: Thoughts on Startup Communities in a Post-COVID-19 World
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What makes communities of startups thrive, and how have they been impacted by the recession, COVID-19, and the remote work trend? Brad Feld addresses these questions in this episode and in his new book “THE STARTUP COMMUNITY WAY: Evolving an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem” and the second edition of his book “STARTUP COMMUNITIES: Building an Entrepreneur…
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139 Parker Conrad: Rippling's CEO on His Entrepreneurial Journey
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Parker Conrad lists himself as “customer support” at Rippling, but he is its co-founder and CEO. He previously founded Zenefits. In this episode he traces his journey from a journalist at Harvard, to founder and CEO of a company that has raised over $50 million. Episode Highlights: The specific thing he likes about sales “I really liked sales. I en…
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138 Scott Simpson: From Amazon to Apple to Comedy -- A Comedian’s Take on the Future of Comedy
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Scott Simpson worked on digital books at Amazon, then podcasting at Apple. Thus, a key guy on two technologies that revolutionized the “long tail” of content. And then…he left to start a standup comedy show. “Cheaper Than Therapy”, housed in San Francisco’s Shelton Theater, presents about 6 standup comedy shows a week, almost always sold out. Then …
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137 Promise Phelon: A Growth Warrior’s Trajectory from BEA to CEO to Venture Capitalist
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“As an entrepreneur, tech CEO and venture capitalist who is also a woman of color, I am well aware of the challenges most entrepreneurs face when it comes to raising capital.” So Promise Phelon summarizes with typical grace what she has learned in an amazing career. Her book, “The Way of the Growth Warrior” – well you can’t get it yet. You can pre-…
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136 Codepath’s Michael Ellison: How Black CS Students View Silicon Valley / The Daily Reality For a Black Man in San Francisco
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“Most Black computer science students think Silicon Valley companies are racist.” If you didn’t know this already – you should really sit down and listen to this episode. No one educates more Black students in computer science than Codepath. Codepath is the non-profit co-founded by Michael Ellison to eliminate educational inequity in technical care…
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135 VC Monique Woodard is NOT "Doing Fine"
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Monique Woodard is a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley. She is one of the very rare Black, female General partners in venture capital. Previously on Something Ventured we explored Monique’s unique path to becoming a venture capitalist, and what she invests in. As events drove the Black Lives Matter (“BLM”) movement to accelerate worldwide, Moniq…
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134 IVP’s Somesh Dash: In Divisive Times, Is Silicon Valley Doing Enough?
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Hold fast to dreams For if dreams die Life is a broken-winged bird That cannot fly. Not every podcast includes a Langston Hughes quote. Not every venture capitalist is Somesh Dash. Somesh is a partner at the venture capital firm IVP. IVP is one of the largest, most established venture firms in Silicon Valley. From his post there, Somesh has seen se…
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133 Eric Tarczynski of Contrary Capital: College – The Definitive Episode on Investing in Startup Founders in College
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(Note: This episode was recorded before the Covid crisis. It includes a brief introduction with Eric Tarczynski to update the status of his fund and college investing, post Covid.) Eric Tarczynski is the founder of Contrary, a venture capital firm focused on investing in college students starting companies. In this episode, Eric discusses how he bu…
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132 Lyft's Raj Kapoor: World Without Covid
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Raj Kapoor contracted Covid in mid-March. He and his family are recovered and well. But Raj is taking aim at shortening the path to a post-Covid world. He partnered with Clara Health to create www.worldwithoutcovid.org. The site let’s people register to help researchers worldwide accelerate their race to find better testing, treatments, and vaccine…
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131 Covid-19, China and Silicon Valley with Kaiser Kuo
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In the midst of the Covid crisis, how should Silicon Valley think about China? Kaiser Kuo is founder and host of the Sinica podcast, and has been a longtime journalist and tech executive in China. Few people know more about the intricacies of China’s politics and their interaction with technology companies. In this episode we discuss China’s respon…
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130 Joe Garofoli of the San Francisco Chronicle: COVID Hits Politics, California and Silicon Valley
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Joe Garofoli is the Senior Political Writer for the San Francisco Chronicle, and host of the “It’s All Political” podcasts. He recently broke the story of the USS Theodore Roosevelt, which ultimately led to the resignation of the Acting Secretary of the Navy. In this episode we discuss the political implications of the COVID outbreak, and how Donal…
