Something Ventured -- Silicon Valley Podcast

Lee Edwards is a General Partner at Root VC, a San Francisco-based deep tech seed fund. They recently raised their 4^th fund of $190 million. 

But before he became a venture capitalist, Lee was an engineer....

In this episode of the Something Ventured podcast, I spend time with Danielle Strachman and Michael Gibson, the people behind 1517 Fund.  1517 is a venture capital firm that defies Silicon Valley's fixation on elite credentials from Stanford, Harvard and the like.

In this episode I talk with Frank Rotman, Founding Partner and Chief Investment Officer of QED Investors, a leading fintech-focused venture capital firm managing $4.3 billion that has backed over 200 companies.

A seven-time Forbes Midas List honoree, Frank shares his remarkable journey—from shapi...

Eric Ries, entrepreneur and author of the bestselling book "The Lean Startup," ignited a movement that reshaped how founders and corporations build and scale businesses worldwide. 

Drawing from his experiences in Silicon Valley startups, Ries introduced a methodology centered on rapid experimentation and iterative development that encouraged entrepreneurs to create minimum viable products (MVPs), test assumptions with real customer...

Kobie Fuller is a partner at Upfront Ventures.   He came to the firm after investing at Accel and leading marketing efforts at EVOLVE, the large global fashion ecommerce platform.

Highlights from our conversation. -- ...

David 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 imagined space to real spac...

Cyan 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 Ferriss' interview with Cyan).

Roger 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. Hi...

Mark 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 meteo...

Winter 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 – th...

Max 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 to...

If 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. ...

In 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 into venture capital, his mission to empower...

Nick 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 venture capital landscape, the challenges o...

Eric 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 ...

Homebrew 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,...

Nolan 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, and beyond, forever chan...

Richard 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...

What 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.