#39: Former VC and funded CEO helps founders grow lasting companies without VC funding – Dave Whorton

Dave Whorton is an experienced tech investor and funded founder who spent the first 20 years of his career at the highest levels of Silicon Valley venture capital and tech-boom startups. He started his career at Hewlett Packard and experienced the famous "HP Way" culture firsthand before he attended the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He joined the preeminent tech venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins and worked directly with John Doerr for several years before launching Good Technology and raising $63 million in venture funding in the early 2000s. He brought in a CEO to run the company before it was sold to Motorola. 

Dave joined the large tech private equity firm TPG and directed many investments there before creating his own small venture capital firm and making several investments in the 2000s. Dave started to become disenchanted with the "Get Big Fast" of the venture capital approach. He talked to several founders who were growing businesses without any outside funding and who were building better businesses with better cultures and better outcomes with no intent to ever sell their companies.

In 2013, Dave started the Tugboat Institute, a membership organization that brings together Evergreen® CEOs across industry sectors to share best practices and unique insights, and to develop trusted bonds for their respective Evergreen paths. Evergreen leaders are seasoned entrepreneurs, CEOs, and presidents with the vision, creativity, resourcefulness, patience, and grit to build and scale a business that will stay private indefinitely.

Learn more at practicalfounders.com.