Greymatter

A look at the current state of innovation in transportation and mobility featuring Jennifer Haroon. Jennifer was on the early team at Google's self-driving unit that later became Waymo, and most recently worked as the CFO and COO of Nauto, a Greylock-partnered startup working on AI for driving safety. She is now an EIR at Greylock. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Part 2 of a two-part series. Greylock general partner and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman continues his discussion with Blitzscaling co-author Chris Yeh on the all-important topic of startup boards. Building off of the previous conversation on how and why boards function, Reid advises entrepreneurs on how they might choose their board members, and provides notable examples of great board members he has worked with in the span of his career. You can read the essay based on this conversation here: https://greylock.com/greymatter/building-a-great-startup-board-pt-2/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Part one of a two-part series by Greylock general partner Reid Hoffman on strategies to build a successful startup board. Too often, the conventional wisdom imparted to entrepreneurs is to treat board meetings as a necessary evil, part of the price you pay for raising money. True, many boards are dysfunctional, but when you build a great startup board, it will be a powerful tool that can help the CEO make the company successful. You can read the essay based on this podcast here: https://greylock.com/greymatter/reid-hoffman-building-a-great-startup-board-pt-i/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Greylock general partner Reid Hoffman in conversation with Harry Stebbings, host of the popular podcast The 20 Minute VC. In this episode, Reid and Harry pick back up from their conversation in November 2020 on Harry's show, discussing everything from Reid's earliest lessons as a young entrepreneur; investing in startups such as Airbnb; and up into the current environment of navigating political issues (and a pandemic ) while running a company. You can read the transcript from this interview here: https://greylock.com/greymatter/ama-with-20-min-vc-reid-hoffman/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Cloud native is the new order of business. But most existing monitoring technology is insufficient to contend with the complex, dynamic, and ephemeral nature of the modern cloud environment. That's why Martin Mao and Rob Skillington formed Chronosphere, a purpose-built platform to monitor cloud-native infrastructure and apps and enable organizations to make precise, data-driven decisions. In this episode of Greymatter, Martin and Rob sit down with Greylock general partner and Chronosphere board member Jerry Chen to discuss the company’s growth, the current state of cloud technology, and the challenges and advantages of starting a company just before the global crisis of 2020. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The investing team from Greylock Partners looks back on 2020 and how it has impacted entrepreneurship. While it’s been difficult, the past year has also been a time of great progress in the startup ecosystem. Not only have entrepreneurs made extraordinary efforts to advance technology and experiment with new business models, there have also been many individuals and organizations taking important strides towards building a more sustainable, equitable and inclusive future. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Greylock general partner Reid Hoffman and Blitzscaling co-author Chris Yeh, discuss why it’s so lonely to be an entrepreneur. In this podcast, Hoffman shares how he dealt with this challenge through both success (LinkedIn) and failure (SocialNet), and how entrepreneurs can find allies and aid in their struggle against loneliness. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As Airbnb makes its public debut, Greylock general partner Reid Hoffman looks back on the past decade of working with the company. Greylock led Airbnb's Series A in 2010. Hoffman initially heard the company described as "renting couches," so he passed at the first opportunity to invest. But later conversations with early investors prompted Hoffman to meet with Airbnb founders Brian Chesky, Joe Gebbia and Nathan Blecharczyk. Within two minutes, he decided to partner with the company. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

While third-party apps like Shopify have made it possible for a company to get a virtual store up and running quickly, scaling that company requires higher levels of flexibility and control. Enter headless architecture, which allows companies to decouple the front end of the commerce platform (where the virtual storefront and content lives) from the back end, where all the data resides. Greylock general partner Mike Duboe sat down with Builder.io CEO and founder Steve Sewell, whose company provides a headless CMS with full drag and drop editing, and Carthook founder Jordan Gal, whose company offers a checkout optimization tool for stores in the Shopify ecosystem. This episode is the first in a series of Greymatter conversations focused on the evolving ecommerce ecosystem. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the audio version of "The Evolution of Cloud," written by Greylock general partner Jerry Chen and read by Greylock marketing partner Elisa Schreiber. The essay is available to read at https://greylock.com/jerry-chen-the-evolution-of-cloud/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices