Challenges of Keeping Up in the Investment World and Providing Feedback to General Partners

On this episode of Invested, Michael hosts Beezer Clarkson, a partner at Sapphire Partners.

Beezer leads Sapphire Partners‘ investments in venture funds domestically and internationally.

Beezer began her career in financial services over 20 years ago at Morgan Stanley in its global infrastructure group. Since, she has held various direct and indirect venture investment roles, as well as operational roles in software business development at Hewlett Packard. Prior to joining Sapphire in 2012, Beezer managed the day-to-day operations of the Draper Fisher Jurvetson Global Network, which then had $7 billion under management across 16 venture funds worldwide.

In 2016, Beezer led the launch of OpenLP, an effort to help foster greater understanding in the entrepreneur-to-LP tech ecosystem. 

Beezer earned a bachelor’s in government from Wesleyan University, where she served on the board of trustees and currently serves as an advisor to the Wesleyan Endowment Investment Committee. She is currently serving on the board of the NVCA and holds an MBA from Harvard Business School. 

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KEY TOPICS 

• [00:00:00] Intro 
• [00:01:42] Starting OpenLP
• [00:03:45] Groupthink in Venture
• [00:07:06] Momentum Investing
• [00:10:13] Choosing the Right Investments
• [00:14:40] How to Get a “Yes” from an Investor
• [00:21:00] Large Funds or Small Funds
• [00:30:00] How Important are Early Wins
• [00:35:20] Is There a VC Personality Type?
• [00:37:36] Advice to Young VCs
• [00:43:00] Is Now the Worst Time to Invest?
• [00:54:48] Mission or Returns
• [00:59:00] Importance of Diversity
• [01:01:00] Ageism in VC 
• [01:08:00] How Investments Changed Since October 7th
• [01:12:21] Investing in AI
• [01:15:31] Rapid Fire

RESOURCES

Follow Beezer Clarkson on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elizabethclarkson/

Follow Beezer Clarkson on X: https://twitter.com/Beezer232 

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For the transcript of this episode, go to: https://content.aleph.vc/podcast-episodes/beezer-clarkson---episode-22

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CREDITS

Executive Producer: Erica Marom 

Producer: Sofi Levak

Video and Editing: Ron Baranov

Music and Art: Uri Ar 

Design: Rony Karadi