Navigating Startup Board Dynamics

Diane Greene -- who is on the boards of Google and Intuit -- has some golden rules when it comes to serving on boards. No 1: “You don’t want to tell them how to do strategy, whether it’s a big company or a small company,” she says. “That’s not your job. Your job as a director is to ask questions.” Lots of questions.

In this segment of the a16z Podcast, a16z's Marc Andreessen and VMware co-founder and former CEO Diane Greene have a candid conversation about their experiences on boards from the perspective of both company founders and board directors. “I’ve almost never seen a problem that couldn’t be solved by better communication and consistency,” Greene says. That's rule No. 2.

[This talk took place as part of a training program in corporate governance that a16z organized with the Director’s College at Stanford on March 5, 2015.]