General Partner, Vertex Ventures
I started rebelling against my parents when I was nine years old by staying up all night to game, hack, and program a new computer. A few years later, I taught myself 3D computer graphics and IP networking while working for EPRI and Stanford University, the local hub for the Internet’s precursor, the NSFNET. At 19, I helped start GlobalCenter, one of the first web hosting providers, with initial customers such as CNN, Netscape, Playboy, and Yahoo!More recently, I was a General Partner with North Bridge Venture Partners, from April 2012 to November 2014. During my tenure I started the seed practice and led investments in Lytro, Periscope.io, Quora, and Ravel Law, in addition to co-founding Coolan.
Technical VCs get real about what it actually takes to raise money as an engineer-founder — why patents and "proprietary data" matter far less than execution, how to treat sales like a recruiting funnel, and why brutal honesty about your product's current state beats an oversold vision every time.
The next edition is programmed by practitioners. Tell us what you built and what you learned.
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