Eileen Burbidge on Silicon Valley, Startups and Early Days at Skype

Today's guest is Eileen Burbidge - esteemed early-stage VC, co-founder and Partner at Passion Capital and co-founder of co-working space White Bear Yard in trendy East London which witnessed the birth of incredible some incredible startups including Monzo and Go Cardless

Eileen spent her early career in Silicon Valley, working at tech stalwarts such as Apple and Sun Microsystems before joining the early team at Skype where she worked directly with the founders in London.

Eileen has also been awarded an MBE from the Queen in 2015 for services to business and also was an advisor to both our Prime Minister and London Mayor.

In this interview we talk about being at Sun Microsystems when Java was released, what the early days at Skype were like, why she got fired from Skype and the type of investments she looks to do through Passion. We also touch on Passion’s recent collaboration with crowdfunding platform Seedrs which marked the first time a European crowdfunding platform had facilitated access from the general to a private venture fund. 

Today’s episode is equally wonderful and very informative which I think you will really enjoy.

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Eileen on Twitter @eileentso  / Passion Capital

Danielle on Twitter @daniellenewnham and  Instagram @daniellenewnham

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This episode was hosted by me - Danielle Newnham, a recovering founder, author and writer who has been interviewing tech founders and innovators for ten years - and produced by Jolin Cheng. 

Let us know what you think of this episode and please rate, review and share - it means the world to me and helps others to find it too.

Episode image of Eileen via Tech Crunch