The Reimer brothers decided to create a firm because there were so few venture investors in Europe. When I was over there for sun, my job was to go find every startup in Europe and ensure that they were developing on sun. But as I went around meeting all these companies, they had brilliant engineers and great products, but no venture funding. So when I came back to the US in 99, I almost decided to stay. It was such a shock of reentry because every taxi driver was asking for stock tips. Everyone was trading stock tips. All anyone was talking about in restaurants were stocks in private companies.
Molly is joined by Laurie Yoler as they dive into her early experiences in VC before discussing how she became the first investor in Tesla (1:45). Next, Laurie talks about her time at Qualcomm and Playground then they wrap with a discussion about AI and how Laurie’s investments were impacted by the pandemic (30:31).
(0:00) Jason kicks off the show
(1:45) Arriving in Venture
(7:36) Laurie’s first investments
(13:39) LinkedIn Jobs - Go to https://linkedIn.com/angel and post your first job for free.
(14:49) Investing in Tesla
(21:21) Prenuvo - Get $300 off at http://prenuvo.com/twist
(22:51) Raising money for a car company
(26:22) Finding strategic partners
(30:31) Laurie’s time at Qualcomm and autonomous vehicles
(37:11) Microsoft for Startups Founders Hub - Apply in 5 minutes for six figures in discounts at http://aka.ms/thisweekinstartups
(38:42) Joining Playground
(41:29) Leaf Logistics
(45:44) Benefitting from the pandemic
(48:54) Investing in AI
FOLLOW Laurie: https://twitter.com/laurieyoler
FOLLOW Molly: https://twitter.com/mollywood
FOLLOW Jason: https://linktr.ee/calacanis
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