Venture with Grace

Tony Conrad is a Partner at True Ventures. He worked with amazingly talented founders, operating teams from companies like Automattic (WordPress), ZERO Longevity Science, Modern Animal, Blue Bottle Coffee, Sweetgreen, MakerBot, Voiceflow, Giftshop, Cast, Bumo, Typekit, Pluralsight, Connectifier & Holey Grail Donuts. He also co-founded about.me & Sphere, both acquired by AOL. Tony is a personal investor in Slack, Automattic, Lowercase Capital, Cygni, Ghia, Empirical Spirits, International Smoke, Saltwater Oyster Depot, Elk Fence, flour+water pizzeria, flour+water, Trick Dog, Samovar and August. He is a board member of Flour + Water Hospitality Group, the Tony Hawk Foundation and formerly a T40 National Co-Chair of Technology for President Obama. Topics: Lessons from early-stage investing in consumer and enterprise businesses The biggest challenges in building a company vs. investing in one The future of consumer experiences and hospitality #VentureCapital #StartupInvesting #Entrepreneurship #TrueVentures

Gary Pinkus is chairman of North America. He was previously the managing partner for the firm in North America, and before that led McKinsey’s office for the Western United States. Gary is also the former global leader of McKinsey’s Private Equity & Principal Investors Practice, which he helped cofound more than two decades ago. He has been a long-time member of McKinsey's Shareholders Council (our global governance board), including historically chairing the Finance and Infrastructure Committee and the Risk, Audit, and Governance Committee. His client work spans multiple industries with a particular focus on private equity and principal investors. Gary joined McKinsey in Los Angeles in 1987 as a business analyst and came to the firm’s San Francisco office in 1992. Over the course of his career, he has worked for Dole Food Company in Honduras, Bear Stearns’ M&A group in New York, and in McKinsey's Houston, Mexico City, Sydney, and Zurich offices. Gary currently serves on the boards of Wake Forest University and US Ski and Snowboard Association. He is a prior member of the boards of San Francisco Opera, California Academy of Sciences, Menlo School, California Business Roundtable, Silicon Valley Leadership Group, ReSurge International (formerly Interplast), and the investment committee for Woodside School Foundation. He earned a Bachelor's degree in English and quantitative economics from Stanford University and an MBA from Harvard Business School, both with distinction. Topics: Essential skills for the next generation of global business leaders A chairman's perspective on what truly sets great companies apart The evolving role of AI in reshaping business strategy and operations #McKinsey #LeadershipJourney #BusinessStrategy #PrivateEquity #ConsultingLife

Joe Reis is an Instructor of DeepLearning.AI DeepLearning.AI is making a world-class AI education accessible to people around the globe. DeepLearning.AI was founded by Andrew Ng, a global leader in AI. Joe is also the former CEO of Ternary Data. He also co-authored the wildly successful O’Reilly book, Fundamentals of Data Engineering. Topics: The Data Engineering Skills Gap The Future of Data Engineering Modern Data Architecture #DataEngineering #DataArchitecture #TechInvestor #VC

Lesley Young is the fractional CRO of Vimeo and Sourcegraph. She is an LP at Stage 2 Capital. Prior to that, she was the CRO of Gem and VP at Segment. She is a creative, visionary, and decisive leader with a track record of integrating and elevating go-to-market strategies that drive revenue and customer growth while steering through economic uncertainties and growth periods. Combines business and technical acumen to swiftly identify and execute pivotal priorities, fostering new customer acquisition and expansion. Acknowledged for deploying efficient and repeatable growth strategies tailored to specific market segments, consistently surpassing multi-million $ revenue targets, delivering exceptional YoY growth, and ensuring long-term company durability. Track record includes participation in successful IPOs and exits, including $3.2. Billion acquisition of Segment Inc. by Twilio in 2020, the successful 2015 IPO of Box at a valuation of $2.3 billion, and the $1 billion acquisition of MySQL by Sun Microsystems in 2008. Topics: The Role of a Fractional CRO Adapting Growth Strategies Across Different Business Models Building High-Performance Revenue Teams #GrowthEndurance #RevOps #GTMStrategy #B2BSaaS #SalesLeadership

Damon Fletcher is the Founder & CEO of Caliper. Caliper transforms cloud cost and usage data into actionable insights with an intuitive analytics platform. Designed for Data Analysts, DevOps, FinOps, IT, and finance professionals, Caliper offers seamless control over cloud environment. Prior to Caliper, Damon was the CFO of DataRobot and Tableau. Topics: The Evolution of Cloud Economics Building Analytics Tools for Multiple Stakeholders The Future of Data Companies #CloudCosts #FinOps #StartupCEO #DataAnalytics #TableauAlum

Anurag Chandra is a CIO at a Single Family Office. He has spent 20 years in Silicon Valley as both an investor and an operator. He has helped lead three venture capital funds, managing over $2B in aggregate. Anurag has been a senior executive in three enterprise technology startups, two of which were sold successfully to public companies. He was a partner with Fort Ross Ventures a traditional mid-stage VC firm with strategic ties to Sberbank (Europe’s largest bank). He is also a Trustee for the $2.5B San Jose Federated Employees Retirement Fund and Chairman of its Investment Committee and Vice Chairman of its Joint Personnel Committee. Topics: Cross-Border Growth Expertise Insights from managing the San Jose Federated Employees Retirement Fund How public market experience influences private market investing #VentureCapital #Enterprisetech #InternationalInvesting #CrossBorderVC

Josh Stein is a co-founder and Managing Partner of Threshold. He currently holds board responsibilities at ChangeEngine, Databook, Inscribe, LaunchDarkly, LendKey, Sanity, and Talkdesk. He is also actively involved with the firm's investments in AngelList, CloudZero, Doximity (NYSE: DOCS), Front, Imbue, and Rippling. His previous investments include Box (NYSE: BOX), Chartbeat (Cuadrilla Capital), Eventful (CBS Local), GoodGuide (UL), iList (IGN/News Corp), Periscope Data (Sisense), Polaris Wireless (strategic recapitalization), Redfin (NASDAQ: RDFN), Selligy (Veeva Systems), SugarCRM (Accel/KKR), Swell (Apple), Tremor Video (NYSE: TRMR), Twilio (NYSE: TWLO), Yammer (Microsoft), and Yardbarker (Fox Sports Interactive). Josh was a VP at Telephia, where he managed a group providing strategic analysis and information to the nation's largest wireless carrier. Previously, Josh was a co-founder, director, and the chief strategy officer for ViaFone (NYSE: SY), a leading provider of wireless enterprise applications. Josh has also held positions in product management at Microsoft and NetObjects, and was a management consultant in the San Francisco office of The Boston Consulting Group. Josh holds a BA from Dartmouth College, an MBA from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business, and a graduate of the Kauffman Fellows Program. He currently serves on the board of trustees of the Crystal Springs Uplands School. Previously, he served on the board of directors of the Stanford GSB Trust, the Center for Venture Education, and the Kauffman Fellows Program, the leading educational fellowship in venture capital. Josh was named by Forbes to its annual Midas List of top technology investors for three consecutive years and was twice recognized as a “top VC investor” by New York Times / CB Insights in their annual rankings. He was also a recipient of the Deloitte Fast 500 Venture Capitalist of the Year award. Topics: Evolution of Enterprise Software Boardroom Dynamics and Social Psychology The Art of the Pivot #VentureCapital #ThresholdVC #JoshStein #TwilioInvestor

John McMahon is widely recognized as the person having been the CRO (Chief Revenue Officer) at five public, enterprise software companies, PTC, Geo-Tel, Ariba, BladeLogic and BMC. John’s expertise was formulated as a pre-IPO member of 4 of the 5 companies listed above. John serves/ served as a board member at public software companies Snowflake, MongoDB and private, pre-IPO companies Lacework, Sigma, Cybereason and Observe. In the past, John has been a board member or executive consultant to: Hubspot, Glass Door AppDynamics and Sprinklr. Topics: Lessons from serving on boards of both pre-IPO and public companies Core principles from "The Qualified Sales Leader" Building and scaling high-performance sales teams #EnterpriseGrowth #SalesLeadership #PreIPO #RevenueMasters

As the Chief Marketing Officer for Eventbrite, Samantha Wu leads the strategic direction of the company’s marketing initiatives as it evolves into a consumer destination for event discovery. Prior to joining Eventbrite, she served as the CMO of Braintrust, the first decentralized talent network where she oversaw brand, product and growth marketing. With over 20 years of marketing experience, Wu has also held senior roles across Meta, Visa and American Express. At Meta/Facebook, she led the global consumer brand and product marketing for the Facebook App, most notably launching Facebook’s first brand campaign “More Together.” Her marketing teams have been awarded with numerous global advertising awards, including Bronze Lions at Cannes, and several shorty and clio awards for exceptional social content and campaign work. Wu has a BA in Economics and Asian studies from Tufts University, a MIA from Columbia University in International Affairs and Finance and also a Degree in Occupational Studies from Le Cordon Bleu Culinary Arts from the California Culinary Academy. Topics: Balancing data-driven growth with brand building AI's impact on marketing strategy and team structure Building inclusive teams and culture #WomenInTech #CMOlife #TechLeadership #CareerGrowth

EP160 StepStone Group Partner Seyonne Kang Seyonne Kang is a Partner at StepStone Group. As of September 30, 2024, StepStone was responsible for approximately $682 billion of total capital, including $176 billion of assets under management. She is a member of the private equity team, focusing on venture capital and growth equity investments. Prior to StepStone, Ms. Kang was a partner with Greenspring Associates, a venture capital and growth equity investment firm that merged with StepStone in 2021. Before that, she spent seven years in investment management with a focus on private capital. Before moving into investment management, Ms. Kang spent about a decade on Wall Street in institutional equities where she served in a variety of functions, including software stock research and distribution of IPOs, follow-on offerings and convertible financings. Ms. Kang earned an AB with honors from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and an MBA from the University of California at Berkeley. You can learn more about: 1. Evaluation framework for first-time fund managers 2. How emerging managers can build credibility with institutional LPs 3. Advice on building long-term LP relationships from scratch