Greymatter

Greylock specialist Lee Haney talks with Peter High, president of Metis Strategy and author of the new book "Getting to Nimble: How to Transform Your Company into a Digital Leader." While no business is completely future-proof, companies that incorporate nimbleness into their people, practices and digital strategies are able to quickly pivot away from problems – and towards opportunities. Peter an...

Entrepreneurs and executives will do all sorts of things to improve themselves, from taking a class on a particular technology, to reading a book about venture deals, to practicing intermittent fasting. Yet very few of them stop to ask the simple yet powerful question, “How can I make my decision making better?” In a discussion with Blitzscaling co-author Chris Yeh, Greylock general partner and Li...

Greylock general partner Reid Hoffman and former Stockton, CA mayor Michael Tubbs discuss how can technology be a force for good for all members of society. Hoffman and Tubbs – who was recently named by CA Governor Gavin Newsom to serve as the state's Special Advisor for Economy Mobility and Opportunity – discuss how a pervasive lack of diversity among tech founders, investors, and operators has t...

As Roblox makes its public market debut, we are re-sharing the Greymatter episode featuring Roblox CEO David Baszucki and Greylock partner David Sze. Baszucki and Sze discuss the future social gaming landscape, share advice for scaling the company vision, and how to build company culture early on. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Greylock general partner and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman looks back on the career of his friend and fellow entrepreneur Jeff Bezos. Recently, Bezos announced that he would be stepping down as CEO of Amazon, the iconic blitzscaling company that he has led since 1994. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi sat down with Greylock general partner Reid Hoffman to discuss the past, present and future of the mobility and delivery business that now operates in 71 countries around the world and employs around 20,000 people globally. He also shared his perspective on M&A (including Uber’s recent acquisitions of Postmates and Drizly), autonomous vehicles, the complexities of workin...

In the second installment of Greylock’s podcast capsule series on commerce, general partner Mike Duboe talks with two experienced operators in the logistics side of the sector: Casey Armstrong, who is the Chief Marketing Officer at ecommerce fulfillment services provider Shipbob, and Aaron Schwartz, the co-founder of cross-border shipping services provider Passport Shipping. In this episode, Mike,...

Consumers now expect the option to buy now and pay later for countless products they purchase on ecommerce platforms. But paying for in-person services like home and auto repair has remained stuck in the past of credit cards and high-interest loans. Until Wisetack came along. The company developed a suite of APIs for software used by in-person service businesses, allowing them to offer consumer-fr...

Obsidian Security co-founder and CTO Glenn Chisolm, whose company protects SaaS and cloud services, and New York Times cybersecurity reporter Nicole Perlroth, whose book “This is How They Tell Me the World Ends:The Cyberweapons Arms Race” published in February 2021, discuss the ever-evolving cybersecurity risk landscape and how businesses and governments can proactively protect their data. Learn m...

Are diversity and inclusion efforts making a difference in the male-dominated VC and tech industry? Pam Kostka, CEO of the equality-focused nonprofit All Raise, discusses the current landscape with Greylock marketing partner Elisa Schreiber. All Raise, which was launched in 2018, connects women with resources, mentorship, and a network to help them excel in the VC and tech world. Today, All Raise...

A look at the current state of innovation in transportation and mobility featuring Jennifer Haroon. Jennifer was on the early team at Google's self-driving unit that later became Waymo, and most recently worked as the CFO and COO of Nauto, a Greylock-partnered startup working on AI for driving safety. She is now an EIR at Greylock. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Part 2 of a two-part series. Greylock general partner and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman continues his discussion with Blitzscaling co-author Chris Yeh on the all-important topic of startup boards. Building off of the previous conversation on how and why boards function, Reid advises entrepreneurs on how they might choose their board members, and provides notable examples of great board members...

Part one of a two-part series by Greylock general partner Reid Hoffman on strategies to build a successful startup board. Too often, the conventional wisdom imparted to entrepreneurs is to treat board meetings as a necessary evil, part of the price you pay for raising money. True, many boards are dysfunctional, but when you build a great startup board, it will be a powerful tool that can help the...

Greylock general partner Reid Hoffman in conversation with Harry Stebbings, host of the popular podcast The 20 Minute VC. In this episode, Reid and Harry pick back up from their conversation in November 2020 on Harry's show, discussing everything from Reid's earliest lessons as a young entrepreneur; investing in startups such as Airbnb; and up into the current environment of navigating political i...

Cloud native is the new order of business. But most existing monitoring technology is insufficient to contend with the complex, dynamic, and ephemeral nature of the modern cloud environment. That's why Martin Mao and Rob Skillington formed Chronosphere, a purpose-built platform to monitor cloud-native infrastructure and apps and enable organizations to make precise, data-driven decisions. In this...

The investing team from Greylock Partners looks back on 2020 and how it has impacted entrepreneurship. While it’s been difficult, the past year has also been a time of great progress in the startup ecosystem. Not only have entrepreneurs made extraordinary efforts to advance technology and experiment with new business models, there have also been many individuals and organizations taking important...

Greylock general partner Reid Hoffman and Blitzscaling co-author Chris Yeh, discuss why it’s so lonely to be an entrepreneur. In this podcast, Hoffman shares how he dealt with this challenge through both success (LinkedIn) and failure (SocialNet), and how entrepreneurs can find allies and aid in their struggle against loneliness. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As Airbnb makes its public debut, Greylock general partner Reid Hoffman looks back on the past decade of working with the company. Greylock led Airbnb's Series A in 2010. Hoffman initially heard the company described as "renting couches," so he passed at the first opportunity to invest. But later conversations with early investors prompted Hoffman to meet with Airbnb founders Brian Chesky, Joe Geb...

While third-party apps like Shopify have made it possible for a company to get a virtual store up and running quickly, scaling that company requires higher levels of flexibility and control. Enter headless architecture, which allows companies to decouple the front end of the commerce platform (where the virtual storefront and content lives) from the back end, where all the data resides. Greylock g...

This is the audio version of "The Evolution of Cloud," written by Greylock general partner Jerry Chen and read by Greylock marketing partner Elisa Schreiber. The essay is available to read at https://greylock.com/jerry-chen-the-evolution-of-cloud/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Innovation happens fast in the cloud-first era of today. Yet the tools and processes that allow software developers to ensure their products are secure were designed for a different era. apiiro was formed to reinvent the secure software development life cycle, by creating a unified platform that allows developers to embed security at the earliest stages. Idan Plotnik, CEO and co-founder of apiiro,...

If you can find a valuable market which has been overlooked, or where your competitors are lazy or stuck in their ways, you can beat that competition, no matter how big or rich those other players might be. Greylock general partner Reid Hoffman and his Blitzscaling co-author Chris Yeh discuss why entrepreneurs are far better off pursuing a high-value opportunity with bad competition over a low-val...

Ahead of election day, we're re-broadcasting our episode featuring Blitzscaling co-authors Reid Hoffman and Chris Yeh discussing the changing cultural norms around mixing business and politics. As Greylock partner and LinkedIn co-founder Hoffman says, "In an increasingly politicized world, it’s harder and harder for CEOs to keep business and politics separate. And in an increasingly politicized wo...

The ability to derive insights and take action from an ever-increasing volume of data has become a critical success factor for organizations across every industry. But as business operations become increasingly digitized and move to the cloud, first-generation analytics systems struggle to deliver insights at the scale and speed necessary to build modern data applications. That's why Rockset built...

Alice Bentinck and Matt Clifford founded Entrepreneur First in 2011 with a mission to expand the global network of entrepreneurs and investors – so that one's geographical location doesn't make or break whether they have the opportunity to participate in the startup ecosystem. The "talent investor" organization recruits and backs individuals at the very earliest stage: before they have a team, or...