[Array] Podcast

Roland Reynolds from Industry Ventures discusses managing $3.5B to successfully invest across the entire venture ecosystem Oct 01, 2018

Roland Reynolds started one of the early fund of funds investing in emerging managers in 2007. He then joined forces with Industry Ventures in 2009 to land their fund of funds initiative. Industry ventures as a firm started in 2000 now manages $3.5B in assets under management. They invest across the entire stack of the venture capital ecosystem in secondaries, hybrids, directs and fund of funds. Roland dives deep into their investment criteria, how they decide to work with their investments, and where the market is today compared to 1999.

Shruti Gandhi's twitter: https://twitter.com/atshruti

Array Ventures website: www.array.vc

Roland Reynolds bio: http://www.industryventures.com/team/roland-reynolds

Industry Ventures website: http://www.industryventures.com

Hollywood's Blye Faust produces the movie Spotlight that wins an Oscar Aug 16, 2018

Blye Faust is an academy award winning producer of the movie Spotlight about the Boston Globe investigation of the Catholic church for allegations of abuse. She has also co-produced The Queen Latifah Showand started an interior design firm byblye

With her co-founder Nicole Rocklin, Blye started a one of a kind women-led production company, Rocklin/Faust. Her company focuses on “Telling transformative, entertaining true stories that engender a collective social dialogue, inspire change, and celebrate innovation.” In this episode we discuss her journey as she transitioned from practicing law into founding a successful production company, how she came about producing and spearheading the creation of the academy award winning movie Spotlight. She also shares her thoughts on the lack of diversity and culture of harassment within the entertainment industry. Listen in to hear a story of a founder creating a company in Hollywood which is very different than our typical tech podcast. We thought this unique founding story was definitely worth sharing.

Blye Faust's twitter: https://twitter.com/byblye

Shruti Gandhi's twitter: https://twitter.com/atshruti

Array Ventures website: www.array.vc

Rocklin/Faust website: http://www.rocklinfaust.com/

About Spotlight (Oscar Winning Movie)

In 2001, editor Marty Baron of The Boston Globe assigns a team of journalists to investigate allegations against John Geoghan, an unfrocked priest accused of molesting more than 80 boys. Led by editor Walter "Robby" Robinson (Michael Keaton), reporters Michael Rezendes (Mark Ruffalo), Matt Carroll and Sacha Pfeiffer interview victims and try to unseal sensitive documents. The reporters make it their mission to provide proof of a cover-up of sexual abuse within the Roman Catholic Church.

Jonathan Abrams founder of Nuzzel and Friendster on how to win in a crowded market Jul 31, 2018

A Canadian implant in SV Jonathan Abrams is now a founder of 4 SV startups: Socializr, Friendster, HotLinks and most recently Nuzzel with backing from Marc Andreesen, Naval Ravikant, Homebrew, SoftTech and Lowercase just to name a few. Jonathan has first hand experience on how timing matters for companies, how to differentiate in a crowded market to rise above the competition, and how execution is as important as the initial idea for the company to succeed. Jonathan is also a prolific angel investor counting AngelList, Docker, Front, Instacart, and Slideshare amongst his portfolio. I love my interactions with Jonathan because he is outspoken about supporting and opening doors for women founders. He is also on the board of Girls in Technology.

Thank you Jonathan for being with us today. Follow us on twitter @abrams and @atshruti

Listen to some other [Array] podcasts: Ryan Hoover founder of Product Hunt, Justin Kan who sold his company Twitch to Amazon for $1B.

Rory O’Driscoll founder of Scale Venture Partners discuss the in and outs of enterprise investing, taking companies public, AI, and building a long lasting VC firm. Jul 30, 2018

Today on our podcast we have Rory O’Driscoll, cofounder and partner at Scale Venture Partners. Scale Venture Partners just raised their 6th fund of $400m managing over $1.5 billion in assets under management. Scale had interesting beginnings as a firm; they were an in-house VC fund inside Bank of America and spun out as a separate firm in 2007 by Rory Driscoll and Kate Mitchell. Scale is one of the few model VC funds in SV with a woman founder and many women investing partners .

Scale has been a helpful partner to Array since our early days and one of the few firms such as Array that focuses in enterprise investing. Rory has led investments and sits of the boards of companies such as Box, DocuSign, Pantheon and many more where Scale invested in these companies around Series A or B until they go public. I wanted to sit down with Rory and learn how to build a long lasting firm and how his views on the enterprise sector have evolved over the years. In this episode, Rory discusses the typical lifecycle of an enterprise startup and there path to IPO, his views on ICOs, how to pick an investment strategy, when/if to consider changing your investment strategy and much more.

Rory O’Driscoll's Twitter: https://twitter.com/rodriscoll

Shruti Gandhi's Twitter: https://twitter.com/atshruti

Scale Venture Partner: https://www.scalevp.com/

Array Ventures: http://www.array.vc/

Billionaire Tim Draper on investing and predicting future of crypto, evolution of venture capital, and why he wants to split California May 10, 2018

Tim Draper is the founder of venture capital firms Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ) and Draper Associates. He also built the Draper University built to empower entrepreneurs take risk and build confidence. He is author of the book How to Be the Startup Hero: A Guide and Textbook for Entrepreneurs and Aspiring Entrepreneurs.

He is an early investor and proponent in bitcoin and investor in companies such as Skype, Theranos, Tesla, and Hotmail. His original suggestion to use viral marketing as a method for spreading a software application from customer to customer was instrumental to the successes of these companies. Today he talks about why bitcoin will be at $250k by 2022, how VC can stay relevant in the world of crypto, why California needs to be broken into 3 states, and other fun gems. Tune in to starting your learning, for some good advice, and secrets of his success.

Tim's twitter handle: TimDraper

Shruti's twitter handle: atShruti

Tim's book: How to Be the Startup Hero: A Guide and Textbook for Entrepreneurs and Aspiring Entrepreneurs

Ryan Hoover, CEO of Product Hunt: How some startups launch on this largest online community and PH's acquisition by Angellist. Mar 25, 2018

Ryan Hoover is a founder of Product Hunt, place to discover your next favorite thing. Product Hunt was funded by investors like a16z, Greylock, Slow Ventures, and Alexis Ohanian. Product Hunt was recently acquired by, Angellist a company where the world meets startups. Ryan is one of the most genuine founders I know in Silicon Valley. He’s built quite a brand for himself. In this podcast we talk about how Ryan build one of the largest communities on the web for Product Hunt, some of his favorite launches on the website, and his decision to sell to Angellist.

Shruti's Twitter: @atShruti

Ryan's Twitter: @rrhoover

Paul Martino, Bullpen Capital: How do you differentiate your fund? Jan 15, 2018

After founding several successful start-ups, Paul Martino (https://twitter.com/ahpah), Duncan Davidson (https://twitter.com/duncandavi), and Rich Melmon (https://twitter.com/RMelmon) decide to start a different kind of company, a venture capital fund - Bullpen Capital (http://bullpencap.com). Starting a successful VC firm requires differentiation. They found a gap in the market allowing them to start a fund with differentiation based on “stage" vs “lifecycle” approach. Bullpen successfully takes a “stage” focus approach creating a "post seed” category. Bullpen truly gives attention to contrarian “vice” markets and founders that many VC firms are unable to or written-off based on their experience and pattern matching. I’ve been as an advisor with Bullpen for a few years and I’ve seen their approach in action. I’ve seen how a perfect Bullpen deal comes about with a combination of math and art together. Let’s hear Paul Martino’s personal journey, and how a VC firm continues to stay competitive as it grows. I have particularly enjoyed this conversation, because hearing my friends journeys accelerates my learnings that I can apply right away as I grow my own fund Array Ventures (www.array.vc) Shruti's Twitter: https://twitter.com/atshruti

Roy Bahat: Starting a new VC fund? Listen to Roy's thoughts on setting it up for success Dec 04, 2017

Roy Bahat is one of the founder of Bloomberg Beta. I met Roy through my friend Shivon Zilis who is also a partner at Bloomberg Beta. Shivon was in one of our earlier podcasts on Array talking about AI. Bloomberg Beta is one of my favorite firms to work with and not only because they are also an LP in my fund Array Ventures but because I respect how they have built their firm and constructed their portfolio in a thoughtful way. They are the only firm I know that sends a survey to their companies asking for feedback on what they can do better. Bloomberg Beta was born out of Roy's frustration when he was raising money for his own startup. That's when Roy saw a need to start a fund with transparency, focus on their experience with the founders, and clear thesis on future of work. With so many VC firms being formed in last few years differentiation is important to be able to attract the right entrepreneurs. Let's dive into how Roy thought about building a new VC firm from scratch and how he thinks about the VC industry today with all the changes in recent years.

Shruti's twitter: @atShruti

Roy's twitter: @roybahat

Bloomberg Operating Manual: https://github.com/Bloomberg-Beta/Manual

Array VC: www.array.vc

Brad Feld founder of Foundry Group and Techstars shares how he invests in companies and funds Sep 19, 2017

Brad Feld is a legend in the venture industry. Brad started out as a founder of Feld Technologies then became an angel and institutional investor and recently also expanded his firm, Foundry Group, into fund investments. Amongst the many things he is known for Brad started Techstars and was an early investor in well known public companies such as Zynga, and Fitbit. He has been one of the few investors bringing transparency to this opaque industry by blogging about his perspectives. In this podcast Brad shares his thoughts on what it takes to be a good investor and fund manager.

You can follow us on twitter at @bfeld and @atShruti

Michelle Zatlyn founder of Cloudflare on becoming a unicorn in span of 8 years Aug 29, 2017

It’s amazing how Cloudflare a company that was a mere dream 8 years has become core part of the internet infrastructure today making websites more secure and scalable. Cloudflare sees all kinds of traffic and attacks from Neo Nazis, largest phasing attacks, political campaigns before you know about it. Tighten your seat belts to get on a roller coaster with Cloudflares's co-founder, Michelle Zatlyn, and her journey to becoming a fast unicorn from her early days of starting Cloudflare at Harvard Business School with her cofounder Matthew Prince and Lee Holloway. Follow Michelle Zatlyn on twitter @zatlyn and your host Shruti Gandhi @atShruti

TK Kader founder of ToutApp gets acquired by Marketo and discusses how to survive when competitors proliferate and market crashes how do you survive? Jul 31, 2017

If you look up the word hustle in wikipedia, You might find a section on today's founder, Tawheed Kader (TK). TK shares his honest thoughts on how he successfully sold his company ToutApp to Marketo in 2017. This did not come without challenges. Even while he was growing fast and at $5m in recurring revenue difficulties came from stock market crash in early 2016. Emergence of highly funded competitors in the category made it tough to fundraise and TK had to layoff a large portion of his company. This is a perfect example of making lemonade out of lemons. TK takes us through how he came out on the other side despite opposing external forces.

TK's twitter: https://twitter.com/tawheed

Shruti's twitter: https://twitter.com/atshruti

Shivon Zilis discusses how she became part of the machine intelligence movement Jun 27, 2017

On our podcast from a few weeks ago on All things AI we heard from Lucas Baker of Google Deepmind on his perspective on current state of AI. Today we chat with Shivon Zilis who is an investor at VC firm Bloomberg Beta and gives an investment perspective on AI. Shivon became somewhat of a celebrity in AI after she first launched the state of machine intelligence in 2014. She has continued to add to that over the years. Let’s have a chat with her about investing in machine intelligence. Follow us @atShruti and @Shivon

Tim Campos former CIO of Facebook discusses strengths of an open and honest culture Jun 05, 2017

Tim Campos, former CIO of Facebook talks about importance of culture at a company, impact of a life coach on his career and challenges he faced as a CIO of two Fortune 500 companies - Facebook and KLA Tencor

Lucas Baker a AlphaGo expert at Google Deepmind talks All about AI May 01, 2017

With a breadth of experience unusual for a young engineer, Lucas Baker has traveled a winding path through the tech industry leading from Stanford through Square, Y Combinator, Pinterest, Google, and most recently DeepMind. Find out what he's learned along the way and what he thinks about the future of machine learning.

Leslie Miley makes it against all odds. Life story of director of engineering at Slack. Apr 17, 2017

In this podcast we'll hear the story of a college dropout, but not the glamorous Steve Jobs-type story you might expect. Learn how Leslie Miley worked his way up through engineering roles at Walmart, ODesk, Apple, Google, Twitter, to become director of engineering at Slack, one of Silicon Valley's most beloved startups, find out his struggles along the way and what he's up to now at Venture for America.

Lukas Biewald founder of Figure8/Crowdflower on how bigger companies use AI Apr 10, 2017

Lukas Biewald, founder of Crowdflower, will be talking about the Future and problems in AI, training data sets, and how AI is used at bigger companies.

Justin Kan discusses selling Twitch to Amazon for one billion dollars Mar 27, 2017

In the space of nine years, Justin Kan pivoted from aimless post-collegiate soul-searching to a massive exit on his company, Twitch, which he sold to Amazon for $1B. Before that he sold his company Kiko Software on ebay! Justin went from being a partner at Y-Combinator to starting his own incubator Zero-F.

Justin Kan's Twitter: https://twitter.com/justinkan

Shruti's Twitter: https://twitter.com/atshruti

Auren Hoffman gives unconventional wisdom on how he sold LiveRamp for $310 million to Acxiom Mar 20, 2017

Auren Hoffman is a founder of Safegraph and previously LiveRamp. LiveRamp was acquired by Axiom for $310m in 2014. Auden shares his views on why smart people make wrong decisions with optionality, how focus in life important, and how to pick markets for your new venture.

Auren twitter: https://twitter.com/auren

Shruti twitter: https://twitter.com/atshruti

Esther Dyson is an angel investor in hundreds of companies, wants to see a reform in healthcare, and talks about her training to live on space and retire on Mars Mar 13, 2017

Esther Dyson trained to be in space and wants to retire on Mars. Esther's global perspective has made her an effective investor and valued board member. A medical scare led her to start Way to Wellville (http://waytowellville.net), a health intervention program for American health system to get healthier. Esther launched her entrepreneurial career in a unique way by acquiring a company she was working for.

Esther Dyson's twitter: https://twitter.com/edyson

Shruti Gandhi's twitter: https://twitter.com/atshruti

Sean Byrnes founder of Flurry gets acquired for $300m+ after nearly going insolvent 3 times Mar 13, 2017

Sean Byrnes is currently a founder of OutlierAI. Previously, he was a founder of Flurry. Flurry was founded during a recession and almost insolvent 3 times until 2014 when it was acquired by Yahoo for $300-$350m. Sean is now a CEO of Outlier.ai which helps businesses make better decisions using AI. Sean shares his insights on staying afloat, keeping up with trends, and his thoughts on Artificial Intelligence.

Sean's twitter: https://twitter.com/sbyrnes

Shruti's twitter: https://twitter.com/atshruti

OpexEngine founder Lauren Kelley shares SaaS benchmarks Mar 13, 2017

Lauren Kelly is the CEO of Opex Engine (https://www.opexengine.com) where they benchmark metrics for SaaS companies. Lauren tells us what metrics should companies track depending on who they are selling to.

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