Something Ventured -- Silicon Valley Podcast

Scott Kupor is the managing partner of famed venture firm Andreessen Horowitz, the venture capital firm with more than $7 billion of assets under management that sits at the beating heart of Sand Hill Road. Sand Hill road is, of course, the physical center of the venture capital industry – the greatest wealth-generating machine in the world. So...Scott is at the center, of the center of the global...

Ellen Pao is CEO of Project Include and author of the book Reset: My Fight for Inclusion and Lasting Change .  Her book looks at power in the tech world – and why so few women and people of color hold it. She famously sued an elite venture capital firm for sexism, and in doing so set off a national conversation. As CEO of Reddit, she waged one of the first highly visible battles against Internet t...

Welcome to Episode 100! Yep, we've made it to 100. And for this one…Pete Alcorn stops by the podcast as he bucket-lists his way around the world. He has run, among other things – ebooks at Amazon (just before they cared about it) and podcasting at Apple. Also at Apple, he oversaw iBooks in Europe and education content discovery everywhere. Pete was also Kent's first partner in the startup world, b...

Eric Lagier co-founded and is a general partner of ByFounders, a 100 million Euro venture firm focused on Nordic and Baltic startups. As you grab your map to find where the Nordics and Baltics actually are, think about this: Since 2013, 41 startups built in Europe are now worth more than a billion dollars. (These are known as "Unicorns", a term coined by Ailene Lee of Cowboy Ventures). Even more e...

Jay Adelson is the cofounder or CEO of Equinix, Revision3 and Digg. From a career that has taken him from building the first data centers to creating a wildly growing news aggregator, Jay has truly unique insight into Silicon Valley. In this conversation Jay traces his path from working at a temp agency to building the largest data center in the world. Nerd out with us as we discuss how you obtain...

Best selling author Po Bronson has written deeply, often hilariously, about Silicon Valley and its effects on the world.  After founding San Francisco's Writers Grotto, he wrote such books as The Nudist on the Late Shift , Bombardiers , and What Should I Do With My life? .  Today, he's a venture capitalist at IndieBio – the Life Sciences accelerator.   In this episode, Po discusses why 2019 feels...

Monique Woodard fell into venture capital.  Or...wait.  Actually, no.  Monique grew up in rural Florida.  Starting with an Atari game system and moving to a Commodore computer, she learned to write computer code This, in a place where coding was far from the norm, and computer class required a drive into town.  She eventually became a venture capitalist, investing in such companies as: Blavity, Co...

Alan Eagle is Director of Executive Communications at Google.  He is the coauthor of Trillion Dollar Coach, a book he co-wrote with Google's former CEO Eric Schmidt and Google's former SVP Jonathan Rosenberg. Trillion Dollar Coach tells the story of Bill Campbell – a football coach who became an executive at Apple, and then one of the most beloved coaches to a "who's who" of Silicon Valley. Among...

James Currier is a partner at NFX a venture firm he co-founded with partners Gigi Levy-Weiss and Pete Flint, and advisor Stan Chudnovsky. As an investor, he has funded companies before or alongside firms like Sequoia, Greylock, CRV, A16z, First Round, Mayfield, Shasta, and GGV. He's also a four-time serial entrepreneur with unique expertise in network effects businesses (his firm has identified 13...

Miyoko Schinner is the founder and CEO of Miyoko's – a vegan creamery that is leading the way to a dairy-free future.  She an award-winning celebrity chef, restauranteur, cookbook author, and TV host. She brought all these experiences to bear as she founded and built Miyoko's from a small storefront to over 100 employees distributing vegan cheese around the country. Miyoko's has raised venture cap...

Whether you call it "Gen Z" or "Post Millenial" -- Carter Cohen is one of them, embedded and here to tell you about the world as he sees it. Carter is the kind of guy who makes you feel bad about what you were doing in college. He's a biochemistry major at Georgetown, speaks 3 languages, studies electrochemistry and...well he's a member of Gen Z, also called "post millennial". In this wide-ranging...

Ryan Bethencourt is  the CEO of Wild Earth, a biotech startup developing meatless dog food.  Its investors include Peter Thiel, Founders Fund, and  Felicis Ventures.  He is a Partner at Babel Ventures and Investor/Advisor to over 80 biotech  startups. He also co-founded the Biotech accelerator Indiebio. We discuss why meatless pet food isn't as crazy as it sounds, the idea that animal-free meat is...

You may think you know about diversity in Silicon Valley, but you may not have heard it this straight up and candid before. Michael Ellison is African American and grew up poor as far from Silicon Valley as possible. Here he discusses how he made his unlikely way to Silicon Valley to become CEO of Codepath.org.  Codepath is the the hugely influential engineering training organization working with...

In this replay episode, Kent Lindstrom and Michael White have a bit of fun at the expense of Burning Man.  Burning Man is the the, um, art fest in the desert to which half of Silicon Valley decamps each year. We discuss the history of Burning Man, what might make people go to Burning Man, and the myriad benefits of hanging out in San Francisco while everyone else is away.   --- In the Something Ve...

Rick Marini is the founder of Protocol Ventures -- a cryptocurrency fund-of-funds, which is rapidly becoming a dominant force in the emerging cryptocurrency space.  Previously, Rick has been an entrepreneur building and selling multiple companies, including early social network Tickle and professional networking site Branchout.  Along the way, he has been a prolific angel investor, investing early...

Rick Marini is the founder of Protocol Ventures -- a cryptocurrency fund-of-funds, which is rapidly becoming a dominant force in the emerging cryptocurrency space.  Previously, Rick has been an entrepreneur building and selling multiple companies, including early social network Tickle and professional networking site Branchout.  Along the way, he has been a prolific angel investor, investing early...

Nick Heyman was an early (like, #8) employee at Facebook. He is now a founder and Managing Partner of DynoVC, a venture firm focused on the transportation industry. Nick believes the transportation market is undergoing the most radical change since inception.  In this podcast we discuss a range of topics from self-driving cards, autonomous vehicles, the future of trucks, scooters and more!   -- In...

Joe Garofoli is the Senior Political Writer for the San Francisco Chronicle, and host of their "It's All Political" podcast.  Joe gives us his take on all things, um, political in Silicon Valley, California and beyond.   -- In the Something Ventured podcast, Silicon Valley insider Kent Lindstrom takes a look behind the scenes as he sits down with the people who are shaping the way we view the worl...

Jim Scheinman, founder of Maven Ventures, has built Maven and achieved successful exits and investments such as Chariot, Cruise and Zoom.us. Immediately prior to founding Maven Ventures, Jim was an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Charles River Ventures (CRV), a leading venture firm where he helped source, vet, and advise their consumer portfolio companies. Jim had an early seat at the emergence of so...

The second part of my conversation with Jim Scheinman ---   Jim has been an entrepreneur and startup executive.  He is also the founder of Maven Ventures, one of Silicon Valley's seed investment firms, which counts among its investments Cruise (acquired by GM for over $1 billion), Chariot (acquired by Ford) and Zoom (which has raised over $100 million from firms including Sequoia Capital). Jim dis...

Jim Scheinman has been an entrepreneur and startup executive.  He is also the founder of Maven Ventures, one of Silicon Valley's seed investment firms, which counts among its investments Cruise (acquired by GM for over $1 billion), Chariot (acquired by Ford) and Zoom (which has raised over $100 million from firms including Sequoia Capital). Jim discusses a variety of topics, including the state of...

2017 was quite a year when it came to the consequences of sexual harassment in Silicon Valley.  For the first time in memory, jobs were lost, careers were ended, and venture firms ceased to exist after women came forward and told their experiences of harassment. In this episode, Kent takes a look back to memorialize 8 stories in 2017 where the consequences of sexual harassment reverberated. We sta...

Marketing guru and teacher Neil Cohen sits down with Kent to reflect -- in this age of cryptocurrency -- on the meaning of tech bubbles.  A fun, lighthearted look at 20 years of craziness in Silicon Valley.   --   In the Something Ventured podcast, Silicon Valley insider Kent Lindstrom explores the reality behind the Silicon Valley headlines, as he sits down with the people who are shaping the way...

Marketing guru and university professor Neil Cohen sits down with Kent for a lighthearted ramble through a series of Tech Bubbles.  From early commerce (Pets.com!) to Segway all the way up to Cryptocurrency, we have fun reviewing some of the most interesting internet phenomena of the past couple decades.   -- In the Something Ventured podcast, Silicon Valley insider Kent Lindstrom explores the rea...

Producer, Director, Writer and all-around Hollywood guy Mike Stutz has figured out how to hack the media. His protest group -- The Useful Idiots -- has figured out a way to get their message across, as only a group of creative types could.  The Useful Idiots include TV, film, theater dance and other creative people.  This episode is part 2 of Kent's conversation with Mike Stutz i which we learn ho...