LA Venture

Spencer shares all about 75 & Sunny--how he is trying to avoid putting dotLA behind a paywall, how Pacaso is not at all like a timeshare, and how he's reinvesting back into startups in LA and beyond.

Gary Benitt is a managing partner at Social Leverage, a $99M seed fund with investments that include Robinhood, Rally Road, Kustomer and more.  Gary is a serial entrepreneur who likes to invest early and lean in.    

Pejman Nozad tells us about investing in Dropbox and DoorDash, and how he picks winners.     He also talks about Pear's current initiatives: Pear Accelerator, Pear Fellows, Pear competition and Founder Circles.    A lot to learn in this episode!

Jessica Jackley is currently an investor at UntappedVC and the founder of Alltruists, a startup disrupting the $300B volunteer economy. Jessica shares how her experience starting Kiva shaped her view of what is possible.

Matt McCall catches us up on venture investing for the Pritzker group where he's doing a lot of seed deals and using those to fuel his Series A investing.   We also discuss wearing life like a loose sweater and other ways to thrive on the entrepreneurial journey.

Josh Jones is the richest, goofiest, most confident yet normal-seeming person who was a Bitcoin pioneer, recently bought an airline, and is a partner at The Fund LA.

Media tech expert Shane Kelly joins to discuss the business of financing feature films and tech startups.   Shane also shares his passion for Pharrell's Black Ambition Prize and his thoughts on the state of capitalism.

Rick Smith is a founding manager partner of @CrosscutVC and one of the pillars of the LA tech community.   Crosscut is now investing out of Crosscut Fund V, but started as a $5M Fund I in 2008.  We talk about growing a fund, a scout program, a tech community and growing personally.

Chirag tells us about his journey from Pritzker Group to DFJ and the evolution from DFJ to Threshold.  He's one of only a few LA-based Series A investors. Great to hear his perspective on today's venture market!

Julie's new fund, Magnify, is writing $1.5M - $2.5M checks into companies that will transform life, work and care for modern families.   Julie talks about very relatable themes like the relentlessness of modern parenting and household optimization.