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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David Anderman: Space (Investing) is Big. Really Big. From Lucasfilm’s Star Wars to SpaceX to…The Final Frontier
58:34
58:34
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58:34David Anderman is co-founder and General Partner of Stellar Ventures, a venture capital firm focused on early-stage space technology startups. He spent 16 years at Lucasfilm Ltd., creator of the Star Wars franchise. As Chief Operating Officer and General Counsel, he notably negotiated Lucasfilm’s $4 billion sale to Disney in 2012. Moving from imagi…
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Cyan Banister: The Future is Cool Again / Falling in Love with Technology / A Brush with Star Wars
1:06:05
1:06:05
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1:06:05Cyan Banister of Long Journey Ventures is truly one of the most successful and interesting early stage venture investors. And by ‘successful investor’, I mean “invested early in Uber and SpaceX” kind of successful. She overcame a challenging childhood that included periods of homelessness (a surprisingly uplifting story, covered deeply in Tim Ferri…
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Roger Ehrenberg: From IA Ventures to Eberg Capital – A Top Silicon Valley Investor Turns to Sports
57:51
57:51
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57:51Roger Ehrenberg's career spans three remarkable acts, each of which would be impressive on its own. He founded IA Ventures, a seed-stage venture capital firm, in 2010. IA Ventures invested in numerous successful startups, including Datadog, Digital Ocean, The Trade Desk, and Wise. His work with IA Ventures has earned him recognition as a three-time…
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Mark Scianna: From Palantir Engineer to Venture Capitalist / Inside Palantir’s Early Days / VC Discovers Defense Tech
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1:00:15
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1:00:15Mark Scianna, the founder of venture firm "Forward Deployed," which targets sectors like Defense, Energy, and A.I., was spotlighted as a 'top emerging manager' in 2022. Starting his journey as an engineer and an early investor at Palantir, Scianna offers an insider's perspective in this episode, unraveling the enigma of Palantir's inception and met…
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Winter Mead: How to Raise a Venture Capital Fund (and more!), From Coolwater Capital’s Founder
57:13
57:13
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57:13Winter Mead is the author of How to Raise a Venture Capital Fund: The Essential Guide on Fundraising and Understanding Limited Partners. He is also founder of Coolwater Capital, a new model that helps launch, build, and scale emerging fund managers While there are a lot of investors (known in the parlance as “LPs”), and certainly a lot of funds – t…
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Max Altman and Ben Braverman: Returning to Tradition with Saga Ventures
48:05
48:05
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48:05Max Altman and Ben Braverman were both pretty close to Silicon Valley royalty before they started Saga Ventures. Max had built Alt Capital with his brothers Sam and Jack. Ben had helped Ryan Peterson build Flexport as its Chief Revenue Officer. Recently, they came together with a third partner (Thomson Nguyen, who does not appear in this episode) t…
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Alexis Gay: Silicon Valley’s Favorite Comedian Makes her “Unprofessional” Debut
55:00
55:00
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55:00If you don’t already know about Alexis Gay, you’re about to. Alexis is the creator and star of her solo comedy show, “Unprofessional”. Recently, her show was a hit at the world-renowned Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and she's now touring the show for audiences across the United States. Alexis previously worked in the tech industry running Business Ope…
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Adeyemi Ajao: A Founder Turned VC on Building Base10 Partners, and the Abundance Mindset
33:36
33:36
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33:36In this episode of Something Ventured, I talk to Adeyemi “Ade” Ajao, co-founder of Base10 Partners, one of the largest Black-led venture capital firms in the world. Ade shares his journey from growing up in Nigeria and Spain to building multiple successful companies, including Tuenti, which was sold to Telefonica. He also discusses his transition i…
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Ignition Partners' Nick Sturiale: Reflections on a Life in Venture
43:24
43:24
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43:24Nick Sturiale reflects on a career working in venture capital, in which he invested early in companies such as Splunk, Bill.com, and Reputation.com. Nick shares insights from his extensive career, which spans roles at Ignition Partners, Icon Ventures, Seven Rosen Funds, and the Carlyle Group, among others. He reflects on the evolution of the ventur…
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Founder Collective's Eric Paley on Empathy and Execution in Venture Capital
51:15
51:15
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51:15Eric Paley is a General Partner at Founder Collective, one of the great seed-stage venture capital brands - and one of the relatively few venture firms led by startup founders. As the name suggests, Founder Collective is a "founder stage" venture capital fund that focuses on providing the first professional round of capital to “entrepreneurs with c…
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Homebrew’s Hunter Walk and Satya Patel: The Power of a Partnership
56:01
56:01
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56:01Homebrew is one of the great venture firm names. It hearkens back to the 1970s era computer hobbyist group that included people like Steve Jobs. Hunter Walk and Satya Patel are the partners who founded and built Homebrew (the venture capital firm). Nevertheless, if you say “Hunter and Satya” in Silicon Valley, people will know exactly who you are t…
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Atari’s founder Nolan Bushnell and Dr. Leah Hanes Have a (Better) Plan for Educating America
46:20
46:20
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46:20Nolan Bushnell’s career is extraordinary. Nolan has ignited two entertainment revolutions: first with Atari, birthing the video game industry through classics like Pong, and later with Chuck E. Cheese, merging pizza and arcade games for family fun. A serial entrepreneur, he's founded over 20 companies, venturing into robotics, personal computers, a…
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Richard Socher: Exploring AI with the Visionary AI Scientist, Entrepreneur and Investor
47:09
47:09
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47:09Richard Socher is a visionary computer scientist, entrepreneur, and AI researcher who has dedicated his career to pushing the boundaries of what's possible in AI. With a Ph.D. from Stanford University, Richard's groundbreaking work in deep learning, neural networks, and NLP has paved the way for remarkable advances in AI applications. It may seem l…
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Hadley Harris: Building Eniac Ventures with 3 Friends / Investing in AI
45:31
45:31
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45:31What are the odds that 4 friends can start a VC firm, and still be firing on all cylinders years later? Hadley Harris, one of Eniac Ventures’ 4 co-founders has the answer. Before co-founding Eniac, Hadley was as a developer and engineering team lead at Pegasystems, and later took on roles as a product manager at Microsoft and strategist at Samsung.…
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Samir Kaji: Building Allocate; The State of the Venture Market; Banking Meltdown (SVB/FRB) Post-mortem
48:54
48:54
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48:54Samir Kaji is the founder behind Allocate, a pioneering platform in the venture capital space. Samir has established himself as a key connector between venture capital firms and the “LPs” (Limited Partners) who invest in them. He is building Allocate to leverage his experience into a platform. After observing inefficiencies in the venture capital m…
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Darian Shirazi, General Partner at Gradient Ventures (Google’s AI Fund): Unleashing AI's Investment Potential
45:47
45:47
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45:47Darian Shirazi is a general partner at Gradient Ventures, Google’s AI fund. Gradient Ventures invests in companies that are “developing AI technologies that have the potential to make a significant impact on the world”. Darian is a serial entrepreneur and investor. He co-founded and served as CEO of Radius, a leading customer data platform, for ove…
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Anthony Soohoo: Bringing the Entrepreneurial Mindset to Walmart
51:11
51:11
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51:11Anthony Soohoo is a Venture Advisor at AI Fund. It is a role he took on after building a company (Dot & Bo) that was acquired. He went from buidling his own company to becoming a leader at -- Walmart. . In fact, Anthony became the head of Wal-Mart’s Home Division. It’s the largest US retailer for home goods, and one of six business units at Wal-Mar…
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