Podcasts about kleiner perkins caufield

In this episode, Ayesha spoke with Marshall Fordyce, MD, founder and CEO of Vera Therapeutics, a company focused on developing treatments for autoimmune diseases. Dr. Fordyce founded Vera in 2016 as an entrepreneur in residence at Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers, took the company public in 2021 and has advanced its lead molecule through a successful Phase II trial in IgA nephropathy. The company is on track to read out its Phase III results next quarter. Along the way, Dr. Fordyce has built a world class team of drug developers and raised over $1 billion in capital. Dr. Fordyce previously worked in clinical development leadership roles at Gilead Sciences in the 2010s, driving innovation in treatments for HIV and hepatitis. Dr. Fordyce received his BA from Harvard University and MD from Harvard Medical School, trained in Internal Medicine and served as Chief Resident at NYU Bellevue. Dr. Fordyce currently serves on the Board of Directors and as Treasurer of the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation. Tune in to hear Dr. Fordyce discuss new innovations in therapies for autoimmune diseases like IgA nephropathy and the work he is leading at Vera Therapeutics. For more life science and medical device content, visit the Xtalks Vitals homepage. https://xtalks.com/vitals/ Follow Us on Social Media Twitter: https://twitter.com/Xtalks Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/xtalks/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Xtalks.Webinars/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/xtalks-webconferences YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/XtalksWebinars/featured

Frank Price will moderate a conversation between Gregg Hurwitz and Kevin Compton, both experts in "Thrillers, Tech, and Ethics in a Rapidly Changing World." Join us for a fast-paced discussion with plenty of twists to keep you on your toes. Gregg Hurwitz is a New York Times #1 internationally bestselling author of 24 thrillers, including the Orphan X series. His novels have won numerous literary awards and have been published in 33 languages. Hurwitz currently serves as the co-president of International Thriller Writers (ITW). Additionally, he's written screenplays and television scripts for many of the major studios and networks, comics for AWA (including the critically acclaimed anthology NewThink), DC, and Marvel, and poetry. Currently, Hurwitz is actively working against polarization in politics and culture. To that end, he's penned op eds for The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, The Bulwark and others, and has produced several hundred commercials, which have received more than 100 million views on digital TV platforms. He also helped write the opening ceremony of the 2022 World Cup. Kevin Compton is a co‐founder of Radar Partners in Palo Alto, CA, a private investment partnership focused on venture capital and multi-asset investing. Previously, Compton was a partner with Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, one of Silicon Valley's most successful high technology venture capital firms for almost 20 years. Compton and his partners invested in many of the most powerful and high profile start‐ups over the past 30 years, including Google, Sun Microsystems, Intuit, Netscape and Amazon. The Forbes “Midas Touch” ranking of top investors has named Kevin as one of the top private investors in the world on numerous occasions, ranking him in the top 10 three times. MLF Organizer: Frank Price   An International Relations Member-led Forum program. Forums at the Club are organized and run by volunteer programmers who are members of The Commonwealth Club, and they cover a diverse range of topics. Learn more about our Forums. This program is part of our Good Lit series, underwritten by the Bernard Osher Foundation.     Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Synopsis: In this engaging episode, host, Rahul Chaturvedi welcomes Marshall Fordyce, Founder and CEO of Vera Therapeutics, to discuss his transformative journey from physician to biotech entrepreneur. Marshall shares the story behind Vera Therapeutics' strategic pivot to focus on IG nephropathy and their development of atacicept, a promising B-cell modulator. He provides valuable insights into the biotech industry's landscape, emphasizing the importance of scientific rigor, adaptability, and maintaining a lean, effective operating model. Marshall's enthusiasm for advancing autoimmune disease treatments and his advice for aspiring entrepreneurs make this a must-listen episode. Biography: Dr. Fordyce brings more than 15 years' experience leading teams in drug discovery, development, clinical translation, and commercialization of new treatments. Before founding Vera, Fordyce was the founder and CEO of gene-editing company Trucode Gene Repair, Inc., having previously served as an entrepreneur in residence at Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers. Earlier in his career, Fordyce served as Senior Director of clinical research at Gilead Sciences, Inc., where he contributed to seven new drug approvals and served as project lead for Gilead's TAF/GENVOYA development program. With subspecialty training in infectious disease from Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, Fordyce was previously Chief Resident at NYU Bellevue and spent two years as a translational research fellow at Rockefeller University. Fordyce currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation. He received his BA from Harvard University and his MD from Harvard Medical School.

If you're looking for inspiration to upgrade your leadership for 2024, you'll want to listen to my conversation with Josh Reeves, CEO and Co-Founder of Gusto on the newest episode of From Start-Up to Grown-Up.These are just three topics from our talk that are fantastic guides to follow into the new year:➡️ The key to hire the right people for your company ➡️ The one rule that will help you manage everyone. ➡️ The most important meeting to add to your calendar (hint: it's with yourself.) Josh Reeves is the CEO and co-founder of Gusto, a startup on a mission to create a world where work empowers a better life. By making the most complicated business tasks simple and personal, Gusto is reimagining payroll, benefits and HR for modern companies. Gusto has offices in San Francisco and Denver, and its investors include Google Capital, General Catalyst, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and the founders of Instagram, Stripe, Nest, PayPal, Yelp, Box and Eventbrite, among others.Learn more about Gusto | Websitehttps://www.gusto.comConnect with Alisa! Follow Alisa Cohn on Instagram: @alisacohn Twitter: @alisacohn Facebook: facebook.com/alisa.cohn LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alisacohn/ Website: http://www.alisacohn.com Download her 5 scripts for delicate conversations (and 1 to make your life better) Grab a copy of From Start-Up to Grown-Up by Alisa Cohn from AmazonLove the show? Subscribe, Rate, Review, Like, and Share!

⭐ My guest today is John Tough, Managing Partner at Energize Ventures. Energize Ventures is a leading climate software investor that manages $1.2 Billion across two strategies: venture capital and growth equity.  In addition, John is the former Chief Revenue Officer at Choose Energy, the largest online energy marketplace in North America, and a former investor at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

The healthcare industry is facing a lot of challenges, like physician burnout, the high cost of care, a lack of insurance coverage, staffing problems, and a lack of adequate interactions between patients and providers, just to name a few. With the loads of technology and applications available, many providers still use fax machines as a mode of communication, making patient access to specialty care difficult and increasing the risk of compromising security. How can this problem be eradicated to increase first response, improve care transitions, and speed up the adoption of e-consults?In this new episode of Highway to Health, a podcast by MarketScale, host David Kemp chatted with Brooke LeVasseur, the CEO of AristaMD, the best person to provide insight into these questions and talk about the delivery of e-consults for patients and providers.At the start of the episode, Kemp asked LeVasseur about the habits she has adopted to maintain her physical and mental stability:"For me, and I've struggled with this my whole life, every year I recommit to improving my sleep. Sleep is like the number one building block, and that's an ongoing struggle for me, but I try to setup good routines for myself so that I'm getting solid, uninterrupted sleep. For stress relief, I'm really into athletic activities. I try to be outside, take walks, and my whole family is into surfing... I can't get started until I get some sweat on, and that helps me stay sane and focused—it's a lot of great benefit," LeVasseur said.Kemp and LeVasseur's conversation included the following:• Health equity• E-consults: Other technologies patients can use other than a FaceTime experience• What goes into care coordination and communication between PCPs and specialists• Who has the biggest lever that could be used to speed up the adoption of digital platforms that improve outcomes. "I think the technologies that have been effective in helping that problem are those that let physicians do what they are meant to do, which is treat patients and get more face-to-face patient time. Arista is focused on how we can get providers to not only do what they are trained to do but really to let everyone in the healthcare system operate at the top of their license, and sometimes you can best do that by giving them technology tools so that they are handling the most complex, acute cases that are appropriate for their licensure," LeVasseur explained."Health equity really requires everyone to have access to affordable care and that they can get to that care in a timely fashion. If you are far away from providers, it's a challenge for anyone living in those remote districts, but surprisingly, folks have huge access problems that lead to inequity in urban settings. Sometimes the barrier isn't your location; it might be your health insurance. We see tons of Medicaid patients struggling to get care because specialists won't see Medicaid patients," she added.Brooke LeVasseur is the CEO of AristaMD and has 20 years of leadership experience launching new, innovative healthcare products and solutions for payers and providers, including software and e-consult solutions. Throughout her career, LeVasseur has worked with numerous startups in a variety of capacities, including corporate and commercial strategy, marketing, and new business creation. She brings a wealth of experience drawn from executive roles at Thomson Reuters, Veracyte, and Sequenom, as well as an array of consultant roles at industry-leading investment and healthcare companies such as Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Versant Ventures, Illumina, Cypher Genomics, and GRAIL. She has led teams to successfully commercialize new, innovative healthcare tools and gain widespread clinician adoption and reimbursement. She holds a degree in English from Stanford University.

The healthcare industry is facing a lot of challenges, like physician burnout, the high cost of care, a lack of insurance coverage, staffing problems, and a lack of adequate interactions between patients and providers, just to name a few. With the loads of technology and applications available, many providers still use fax machines as a mode of communication, making patient access to specialty care difficult and increasing the risk of compromising security. How can this problem be eradicated to increase first response, improve care transitions, and speed up the adoption of e-consults?In this new episode of Highway to Health, a podcast by MarketScale, host David Kemp chatted with Brooke LeVasseur, the CEO of AristaMD, the best person to provide insight into these questions and talk about the delivery of e-consults for patients and providers.At the start of the episode, Kemp asked LeVasseur about the habits she has adopted to maintain her physical and mental stability:"For me, and I've struggled with this my whole life, every year I recommit to improving my sleep. Sleep is like the number one building block, and that's an ongoing struggle for me, but I try to setup good routines for myself so that I'm getting solid, uninterrupted sleep. For stress relief, I'm really into athletic activities. I try to be outside, take walks, and my whole family is into surfing... I can't get started until I get some sweat on, and that helps me stay sane and focused—it's a lot of great benefit," LeVasseur said.Kemp and LeVasseur's conversation included the following:• Health equity• E-consults: Other technologies patients can use other than a FaceTime experience• What goes into care coordination and communication between PCPs and specialists• Who has the biggest lever that could be used to speed up the adoption of digital platforms that improve outcomes. "I think the technologies that have been effective in helping that problem are those that let physicians do what they are meant to do, which is treat patients and get more face-to-face patient time. Arista is focused on how we can get providers to not only do what they are trained to do but really to let everyone in the healthcare system operate at the top of their license, and sometimes you can best do that by giving them technology tools so that they are handling the most complex, acute cases that are appropriate for their licensure," LeVasseur explained."Health equity really requires everyone to have access to affordable care and that they can get to that care in a timely fashion. If you are far away from providers, it's a challenge for anyone living in those remote districts, but surprisingly, folks have huge access problems that lead to inequity in urban settings. Sometimes the barrier isn't your location; it might be your health insurance. We see tons of Medicaid patients struggling to get care because specialists won't see Medicaid patients," she added.Brooke LeVasseur is the CEO of AristaMD and has 20 years of leadership experience launching new, innovative healthcare products and solutions for payers and providers, including software and e-consult solutions. Throughout her career, LeVasseur has worked with numerous startups in a variety of capacities, including corporate and commercial strategy, marketing, and new business creation. She brings a wealth of experience drawn from executive roles at Thomson Reuters, Veracyte, and Sequenom, as well as an array of consultant roles at industry-leading investment and healthcare companies such as Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Versant Ventures, Illumina, Cypher Genomics, and GRAIL. She has led teams to successfully commercialize new, innovative healthcare tools and gain widespread clinician adoption and reimbursement. She holds a degree in English from Stanford University.

Suneel Gupta is a teacher of innovation at Harvard University and is the author of the upcoming book, BACKABLE, where he explores how to get people to believe in your ideas. Suneel's ideas have been backed by firms like Greylock and Google Ventures, and he served as an Entrepreneur in Residence inside Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. The New York Stock Exchange has named Suneel “The New Face of Innovation”. He has personally backed startups including Impossible Foods, Airbnb, 23&Me, Calm, and SpaceX. In 2019, Suneel established the Gross National Happiness Center of America in partnership with the Kingdom of Bhutan.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

John Maeda would rather be curious than afraid, despite the tectonic shifts in our world. AI—artificial intelligence—is reaching new milestones that foreshadow big changes in many careers. Some ignore what's on the horizon, others acknowledge what's to come but are paralyzed by fear. John Maeda takes a different approach: he just keeps reinventing himself. John jumped from MIT where he was a professor deeply invested in technology to the Rhode Island School of Design where he shook up the traditional notions of creativity. He then went on to Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers where he brought design and venture capital closer together. In this episode, John shares why he's always starting over and reconsidering his assumptions and he lays out some of his principles for embracing career and life changes. Show notes and links: http://reconsidering.org/episodes/24 This episode is proudly sponsored by Indeed.design.

Ray Lane is a storied technology executive and venture capitalist. He was the President & COO of Oracle, the Executive Chairman of HP, a Managing Partner at Kleiner, Perkins, and the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Carnegie Mellon. He is also a recipient of the David Packard Medal of Achievement Award, whose other notable recipients include Reid Hoffman, Marc Benioff, and Ross Perot. Ray is responsible for creating over $19 billion in enterprise value in the last 5 years. Those investments include Beyond Meat (2019 peak of $14 billion; Ray was the first institutional investor), UpWork ($2.3 billion1), Uptake (currently valued at $2.3 billion) and Kinetica. Ray is best known for leading the turnaround of Oracle in the 1990's. During his tenure as President and COO, Ray helped grow Oracle's market cap by more than 114x from $2.1 billion to $236 billion2, and he expanded the company from 7,500 to 40,000 employees. After Oracle, Ray was a Managing Partner at venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers from 2000-2014, a firm noted for investing in many of today's industry leaders during Ray's tenure, such as Google, Amazon, Spotify, DocuSign, Slack, Twitter, Nest, Arcsight, Beyond Meat, Facebook, Square, Slack and Snap. Earlier in his career, Ray was the Managing Partner of the technology practice for Booz Allen Hamilton, led a Division of Electronic Data Systems Corporation working for Ross Perot, and was a Sales/Product Manager for IBM. Ray is also a US Army Veteran, has served as the Vice Chairman of the Special Olympics International since 2012, and holds multiple honorary PhDs. Outside of GreatPoint Ventures, Ray is an outdoorsman, and spends time with his wife, Stephanie, five children, and five grandchildren.          Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/success-made-to-last-legends--4302039/support.

Dr. Fordyce brings more than 15 years' experience leading teams in drug discovery, development, clinical translation, and commercialization of new treatments. Before founding Vera, Fordyce was the founder and CEO of gene-editing company Trucode Gene Repair, Inc., having previously served as an entrepreneur in residence at Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers. Earlier in his career, Fordyce served as Senior Director of clinical research at Gilead Sciences, Inc., where he contributed to seven new drug approvals and served as project lead for Gilead's TAF/GENVOYA development program. With subspecialty training in infectious disease from Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, Fordyce was previously Chief Resident at NYU Bellevue and spent two years as a translational research fellow at Rockefeller University. Fordyce currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation. He received his BA from Harvard University and his MD from Harvard Medical School.

Marianna Tessel (CTO @ Intuit) & Aileen Lee (Founder/Managing Partner @ Cowboy Ventures) cover how to navigate the build vs. buy decision! They share the frameworks they use to make a “buy” decision, how they assess engineering talent during acquisitions, how they decide between vendor software vs. open-source vs. building yourself. Plus the leadership skills that help Marianna lead a 5,000+ person team! MARIANNA TESSEL, CTO @ INTUIT Marianna oversees Intuit's technology strategy and leads all of Intuit's product engineering, data science, information technology and information security teams worldwide. Marianna's been at the forefront of significant tech transformations, including virtualization, cloud, and dev ops. Marianna previously served as Executive VP of Strategic Development at Docker, held leadership roles at VMware, Ariba, and General Magic working on the forefront of significant tech transformations, including virtualization, cloud, and dev ops. the forefront of significant tech transformations, including virtualization, cloud, and dev ops. AILEEN LEE, FOUNDER & MANAGING PARTNER @ COWBOY VENTURES Aileen is founding Partner at Cowboy Ventures, a team that backs seed-stage technology companies re-imagining work and life through technology, what they call “life 2.0”. Cowboy Ventures works with startups like Guild Education, Lightstep, Dollar Shave Club, and Tally. Aileen periodically writes about technology insights and is known for coining the business term “unicorn” for public and private companies valued over $1bn. She has been named to the Forbes Midas List of best investors and Forbes Most Powerful Women, as well as to Time Magazine's 100 most influential people. Prior to Cowboy, Aileen was a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, was founding CEO of RMG Networks, and worked at Gap Inc in operating roles. She has degrees from MIT and HBS, is mom of 3, wife to a startup founder, an Aspen Institute Henry Crown Fellow and co-founder of the non-profit All Raise - aiming to accelerate success for women in the technology ecosystem. SHOW NOTES About Marianna's role at Intuit (2:33) How many acquisitions / build vs. buy decisions have you had to make? (4:35) Marianna's evaluation framework for buying companies (6:26) Assessing engineering talent in acqui-hires (9:37) How do you decide to buy vendor software or build yourself? (15:41) How do you define what's core to the business vs. context? (19:11) Where are you looking to buy instead of build right now? (21:40) Hard & soft skills that helped Marianna advance her career and run a 5000+ person team (23:48) Were you always good at the "developing talent" and "managing" part of being a CTO? (26:50) BROUGHT TO YOU BY... Jellyfish - Jellyfish helps you align engineering work with business priorities and enables you to make better strategic decisions. Learn more at Jellyfish.co/elc Listen to our Bonus Episode w/ Guillermo Fisher, Director of Engineering, Infrastructure @ Handshake on internal mobility, mission-driven decisions, & self-service infrastructure! Listen HERE: https://spoti.fi/3zdNnXn Special thanks to our exclusive accessibility partner Mesmer! Mesmer's AI-bots automate mobile app accessibility testing to ensure your app is always accessible to everybody. To jump-start, your accessibility and inclusion initiative, visit mesmerhq.com/ELC --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/engineeringleadership/message

In today's episode, Trey Lockerbie sits down with Bing Gordon. Bing is a legend in the silicon valley world, having first been a co-founder of Electronic Arts (EA), then went on to be a director at Zynga, Audible, Zume, Duolingo, and others. For the last 18 years, he's also sat on the board at Amazon. He's now sitting on the other side of the table, as a partner at the prestigious VC firm, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.IN THIS EPISODE, YOU'LL LEARN:(04:01) The gaming industry and how it's evolved since his time at EA(19:21) What it's been like to sit on the board of Amazon and how that opportunity materialized(49:52) What makes a great investment and how founders should be protected at all costs*Disclaimer: Slight timestamp discrepancies may occur due to podcast platform differences.BOOKS AND RESOURCES:Trey Lockerbie TwitterPreston, Trey & Stig's tool for picking stock winners and managing our portfolios: TIP Finance Tool Check out our Investing Starter Packs about business and financeBrowse through all our episodes (complete with transcripts) hereSupport our free podcast by supporting our sponsorsHave high-quality, sustainably sourced Wild-Caught Seafood delivered right to your door with Wild Alaskan Company. Order today and get $15 off your 1st box of premium seafoodGet help writing your emails, reports, presentations, resumes, blogs today with WordTuneBring your WiFi up to speed with Orbi WiFi 6 from NETGEAR. Save 10% with promo code BILLION10Communicate your ideas in the best way possible with CanvaStart feeling better with a single message. Match with a licensed therapist with Talkspace and get $100 off your first month with the promo code WSBJoin OurCrowd and get to invest in medical technology, breakthroughs in ag tech and food production, solutions in the multi-billion dollar robotic industry, and so much moreUncover thousands of business ideas and discover the steps you need to execute with My First Million. Search My First Million on your podcast appAccess conference calls, investor presentations, transcripts and earnings reports as frictionless as possible with Quartr. Available now on Google PlayCheck out Kraken's industry-leading exchange where you can buy BitcoinHELP US OUT!Help us reach new listeners by leaving us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts! It takes less than 30 seconds, and really helps our show grow, which allows us to bring on even better guests for you all! Thank you – we really appreciate it!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Zach Sims is the Co-Founder and CEO of Codecademy, the easiest way to learn to code. Since the company started in August of 2011, millions of people have begun learning to program using the site. Codecademy has worked with organizations like The White House, the Government of Colombia, American Express, Rakuten, and more. Zach and his cofounder Ryan Bubinski have grown Codecademy to over 100 employees and have raised nearly $90M in venture capital financing from top tier investors including Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers, Union Square Ventures, Index Ventures, Yuri Milner, O'Reilly AlphaTech Ventures, SV Angel, Richard Branson, Y Combinator, and more. Prior to founding Codecademy, Zach was a student at Columbia University. He has worked in product and business development/strategy capacities at startups including GroupMe (sold to Skype) and drop.io (sold to Facebook). He also has experience in the venture capital industry with AOL Ventures. Zach and Codecademy have been honored by many publications. TIME Magazine called Codecademy one of the "50 Best Websites of 2012," while TechCrunch awarded Codecademy the "Best Education Startup" Crunchie Award in 2013. Zach has been named to Inc. Magazine's 30 Under 30 list, along with Forbes Magazine's 30 Under 30 list. The City of New York named him a New York City Venture Fellow in 2013. Some of the Topics Covered by Zach Sims in this Episode What Codecademy is doing today and how it got started The issue of active discouragement of learning technical skills What led to early growth and traction of Codecademy Earning over 200,000 users in the first 3 days How Zach views viral loops Raising capital versus running off revenue Creating a movement versus building a product Creating sustainability first and scaling later The timing of launching a paid version of the product Going from the center of attention the the brink of bankruptcy Creating premium educational content Resource allocation between users who are upscaling and career switching Building an engaged community Zach's views on bootcamps How they cater to different types of Codecademy users and learners Codecademy for business How Zach takes care of himself to be at his best Zach's founder support networks Zach's path to and views on entrepreneurship How Zach sees the future of higher education and learning Sign up for The Grind, for actionable insights and stories from successful entrepreneurs delivered to your inbox once per week: https://www.justgogrind.com/newsletter/ Listen to all episodes of the Just Go Grind Podcast: https://www.justgogrind.com/podcast/ Follow Justin Gordon on Twitter: https://twitter.com/justingordon212 Follow Justin Gordon on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/justingordon8/

Today's guest today is Suneel Gupta. A true teacher and entrepreneur. What makes someone Backable? Suneel shares that it's not just about charisma and talent. He answers this complex question and gives clear and defined guidance on how to be someone people believe in and back in his new book, Backable that is out tomorrow. Suneel graduated from North Western school of Law , and has worked as Groupons first VP of product development, at Mozilla - director of product development, co- founder/CEO of Rise, an Entrepreneur in Residence at Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers, is a visiting Scholar at Harvard University, teaches yoga, and is a husband and father to his two young daughters. If the name sounds familiar he is also the kid brother of Dr. Sanjay Gupta and son of the first female engineer at Ford. That was a mouth full. Suneel's ability to educate, inspire and humanize the work experience made this conversation one I will not forget. We need more people in the world like Suneel. Enjoy. www.suneelgupta.com Books: Backable: The Surprising Truth Behind What Makes People Take a Chance on You out 2/23       www.AvocadoGreenMattress.com with code GABBYREECE for $200 off www.Upstart.com/Gabby

Harvard Business School's Julia Austin, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers' Eric Feng, Khosla Ventures' Benjamin Ling and CNN's Dylan Byers at Collision Conf 2018. What are the factors that determine whether a startup will launch and then flounder versus soar into a huge, game-changing endeavor? What separates those entrepreneurs who will set the tech world on fire? Hear from a group of experts who have helped build Facebook, Google, DigitalOcean and others and are taking bets on companies that want to change the world.Support the show (https://websummit.com/)

Dave Whorton is an entrepreneur, business leader, education reformer, and investor. Dave founded four companies including Good Technology and Drugstore.com. He also worked for three venture capital firms, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, TPG, and Interwest. A small angel investment that Dave made in 2005 opened his eyes to an alternative way of supporting seasoned entrepreneurs who wanted to build large, profitable, innovative businesses that they would run privately for their lifetimes. In 2013 he founded The Tugboat Institute, a membership organisation designed to support Evergreen leaders and their companies over the very long term. "We believe in the vital importance of humans coming together to create and grow enduring, private businesses that make a dent in the universe." - Tugboat Institute (https://www.tugboatinstitute.com/about-us/) Standout Quotes * "How do you help a company have good hygiene? A very important component of that is how you develop the family members into the business" - Dave Whorton [31:44] * "If you feel your company is deeply purpose-driven and meant to have a significant impact for a long time in the world then you do think naturally about it from a standpoint of stewardship" - Dave Whorton [34:04] * "How can I take this incredible asset and move it forward before handing it over to the next steward?" - Dave Whorton [34:16] * "I think it's really important to develop a work ethic in your kids, I don't care what level of wealth you have" - Dave Whorton [45:50] Key Takeaways * The 7Ps that makes a company evergreen: Purpose, Perseverance, People First, Private, Profit, Paced Growth and Pragmatic Innovation [21:44] * Entrepreneurs have to be very clear with CEOs about what they want from their investing partners [39:37] * Dave describes some qualities that he observed to be common among evergreen leaders which mostly include being introverted and humility [23:46] * Developing a work ethic at a young age is critically important and also exposing them to the importance of saving [46:11] Episode Timeline: * [00:48] Mike introduces Dave and tells us a little about him * [02:06] Dave shares his backstory and work background in more detail * [17:20] The Tugboat group and how it's evolved over time. * [21:44] The 7Ps that makes a company evergreen: Purpose, Perseverance, People First, Private, Profit, Paced Growth and Pragmatic Innovation * [23:46] Dave describes some qualities that he observed to be common among evergreen leaders which mostly include being introverted and humility * [30:18] How does Tugboat support generational transitions of family members or other closely held businesses? * [34:04] if you feel your company is deeply purpose-driven and meant to have a significant impact for a long time in the world then you do think about naturally about it from a standpoint of stewardship; How can I take this incredible asset and move it forward before handing it over to the next steward? * [39:37] Entrepreneurs have to be very clear with CEOs about what they want from their investing partners * [45:33] Dave shares his thoughts on generational wealth and legacy building in contrast to a focus on the children developing a work ethic and inheriting nothing. * [49:29] The failure Dave faced that eventually took him on a journey to where he is today. For more episodes go to BusinessOfFamily.net (https://www.businessoffamily.net/) Sign up for The Business of Family Newsletter at https://www.businessoffamily.net/newsletter (https://www.businessoffamily.net/newsletter) Follow Mike on Twitter @MikeBoyd (https://twitter.com/MikeBoyd) If you feel it's appropriate, I'd so appreciate you taking 30 seconds to Leave a Review on iTunes (http://getpodcast.reviews/id/1525326745), I receive a notification of each review. Thank you! Special Guest: Dave Whorton.

In this best-of episode originally published in October 2017, Recode's Kara Swisher talks to investor Ellen Pao about her book, Reset: My Fight for Inclusion and Lasting Change, which chronicled Pao’s 2015 court battle against her former employer, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. They discuss her unsuccessful gender discrimination lawsuit, how it paved the way for future whistleblowers such as Susan Fowler at Uber, and the problems with Silicon Valley's "free speech" idealism. Featuring: Ellen Pao (@ekp), author, Reset: My Fight for Inclusion and Lasting Change Host: Kara Swisher (@karaswisher), Recode co-founder and editor-at-large More to explore: On Recode Media, Peter Kafka interviews business titans, journalists, comedians and podcasters about the collision of tech and media. On Pivot, Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway talk about the big tech news stories of the week, who's winning, who's failing, and what comes next. And on Season 1 of Land of the Giants, Jason Del Rey chronicled the rise of Amazon. On Season 2, Peter Kafka and Rani Molla examined "the Netflix effect." About Recode by Vox: Recode by Vox helps you understand how tech is changing the world — and changing us. Follow Us: Newsletter: Recode Daily Twitter: @Recode and @voxdotcom Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Denise Young Smith is of the most prominent African-American female executives in Silicon Valley, Smith’s 20-year career at Apple includes leading human resources and most recently overseeing the company’s global effort for an inclusive and embracing culture and workforce. Prior to Apple, Denise offered talent, HR and management consulting expertise to early-stage businesses including Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers portfolio companies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Silicon Valley venture capitalist Randy Komisar, a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, discusses the pressing need for social-justice innovations, the unregulated imbalance between capital and labor, and the monopolization of data by the big tech companies.

Walter L. McLeod has more than 25 years of executive experience in business development, strategy and government relations in the energy and mobility sectors. He has been actively engaged in clean technology deployment and finance for over a decade. Mr. McLeod is the Founder and Managing Director of Eco Capitol Companies, where he has served as a senior advisor to energy companies, startups, investors, trade associations and think tanks. He was a junior partner candidate with Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB) Green Tech Partners Investment Team. Walter has been an active thought leader in shaping clean energy and mobility policy in the United States for many years. He was appointed to serve on the original “Utility 2.0” project steering committee commissioned by the United Nations Foundation. Walter was also appointed to the “Value of Solar” stakeholder committee commissioned by the Virginia General Assembly. He has successfully developed or permitted a portfolio of utility scale solar projects with a capacity exceeding 500 megawatts (MW) and valued at more than $750M. Mr. McLeod is also the Founder of the Global Energy and Innovation Institute, where he created the “Electric Vehicle Roundtable” consortium which produced the 2017 landmark document, “Guiding Principles for Electrified Mobility.” Industry participants included Xcel Energy, Dominion Energy, Deutsche Bank, Daimler, Tesla, Volkswagen, EVgo, ChargePoint, Lyft and Uber – representing a collective market cap exceeding $344B. Walter was also appointed to the Virginia Automated 20xx Strategic Plan autonomous mobility committee by the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT). Walter has served on several boards and advisory committees, including the George Mason University Alumni Association, American Council on Renewable Energy, Chemical Angels Network, MIT Energy Prize and SURGE Ventures Accelerator, to name a few. Mr. McLeod earned an M.S. in chemistry from the College of Science at George Mason University, a Bachelor of Art in chemistry from the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and completed the Executive Education Program at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. http://www.vsfsolar.com/ https://carbon.substack.com/ https://nexuspmg.com/

This week, Jon sits down with Ryan Popple, president and CEO of Proterra. Proterra is the leading innovator of zero-emission, battery-electric buses. This conversation centers on Ryan’s journey into the clean energy space and the role Proterra plays in leading the transition from fossil fuels to clean energy. Prior to Proterra, Ryan was a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and the senior director of finance at Tesla Motors, focusing on strategic planning, technology cost reduction and corporate finance. Ryan served in the U.S. Army, received a bachelor’s in business administration from the College of William & Mary and a master’s in business administration from Harvard University.

Silicon Valley legend, Randy Komisar joins us today in a longer than usual episode, but definitely an information-packed conversation. He shares a piece of his mind to us especially on how to have a legendary career, what it's like to be dubbed as the Digital CEO and many more. Rare Opportunity  Randy Komisar was a partner at VC pioneer Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. He worked closely with other legends like Steve Jobs and George Lucas. In fact, he has some very interesting stories he shared, being a former senior counsel at Apple and former CEO at LucasArts. “I don't like being disliked and I don't particularly try to be liked. I try to be valued, to create something constructive or positive in a relationship. But being liked is not, it doesn't cross my mind. I want to be respected, if I'm really lucky, I'd like to be admired.” - Randy Komisar The Virtual CEO Silicon Valley CEOs dubbed him as a Virtual CEO. Randy served in that role for companies like WebTV and Global Giving. He had some compelling stories and opinions to share in what Christopher dubbed as “the business equivalent of the lunar landing.” He also served as the founding director of TiVo, which is a direct lineage of Netflix entering that category today. Tivo won one of the biggest patent damage claims of all time, way over billion dollars, and Randy recounts to Christopher what happened during that time. “I actually think, we should have sued earlier. we have the patent rights to all of these, the real question was, could we have coop these guys as partners.” - Randy Komisar Utopians Vs. Libertarians Two significant and different technology demographics comprise Silicon Valley. He describes the 70's and 80's guys as the technology Utopians. Infrastructures were allegedly oppressive at that time which led the Utopians to utilize tools and come to technology to end this. Ultimately, they wanted to empower individuals. Furthermore, the Utopians had a sense of ‘a social contract.’ They felt they need to make the world better. These tools and the advantages that they had with these tools gave them the opportunity to challenge the status quo. In the advent of Facebook and Paypal, we move from technology utopians to technology libertarians. “The tools and platform that you build raise the creative endeavor. It's not to take-the-money- and-run situation. That money gets invested in more ideas, more vision. Yes you need to make a profit, but that profit can fuel creativity or consumption, you get to choose.” - Randy Komisar To hear more about the Silicon Valley Legend Randy Komisar, download and listen to the episode. Bio: Randy Komisar joined Kleiner Perkins in 2005 and focuses on early-stage investing. He served as CFO of GO Corp. and as senior counsel for Apple Computer, following a private practice in technology law. Randy is a founding director of TiVo and serves on the Roadtrip Nation Advisory Board and Orrick’s Women’s Leadership Board. Additionally, he is the author of the best-selling book The Monk and the Riddle, as well as several articles on leadership and entrepreneurship. Furthermore, he is the co-author of Straight Talk for Startups, the insider best practices for entrepreneurial success, Getting to Plan B, on managing innovation, and I F**king Love that Company, on building consumer brands. Randy frequently speaks in the United States and abroad on such topics. Randy holds a B.A. degree in economics from Brown University and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. Links: Amazon: Randy Komisar Kleiner Perkins Book: Straight Talk for Startups The Monk and the Riddle: The Art of Creating a Life While Making a Living  Executives Launch Podcast To Pass On Lessons From Bill Campbell, Coach To Silicon Valley Stars No Bull Podcast Harper Collins Speakers Bureau: Randy Komisar We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter,

Silicon Valley legend, Randy Komisar joins us today in a longer than usual episode, but definitely an information-packed conversation. He shares a piece of his mind to us especially on how to have a legendary career, what it's like to be dubbed as the Digital CEO and many more. Rare Opportunity  Randy Komisar was a partner at VC pioneer Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. He worked closely with other legends like Steve Jobs and George Lucas. In fact, he has some very interesting stories he shared, being a former senior counsel at Apple and former CEO at LucasArts. “I don't like being disliked and I don't particularly try to be liked. I try to be valued, to create something constructive or positive in a relationship. But being liked is not, it doesn't cross my mind. I want to be respected, if I'm really lucky, I'd like to be admired.” - Randy Komisar The Virtual CEO Silicon Valley CEOs dubbed him as a Virtual CEO. Randy served in that role for companies like WebTV and Global Giving. He had some compelling stories and opinions to share in what Christopher dubbed as “the business equivalent of the lunar landing.” He also served as the founding director of TiVo, which is a direct lineage of Netflix entering that category today. Tivo won one of the biggest patent damage claims of all time, way over billion dollars, and Randy recounts to Christopher what happened during that time. “I actually think, we should have sued earlier. we have the patent rights to all of these, the real question was, could we have coop these guys as partners.” - Randy Komisar Utopians Vs. Libertarians Two significant and different technology demographics comprise Silicon Valley. He describes the 70's and 80's guys as the technology Utopians. Infrastructures were allegedly oppressive at that time which led the Utopians to utilize tools and come to technology to end this. Ultimately, they wanted to empower individuals. Furthermore, the Utopians had a sense of ‘a social contract.’ They felt they need to make the world better. These tools and the advantages that they had with these tools gave them the opportunity to challenge the status quo. In the advent of Facebook and Paypal, we move from technology utopians to technology libertarians. “The tools and platform that you build raise the creative endeavor. It's not to take-the-money- and-run situation. That money gets invested in more ideas, more vision. Yes you need to make a profit, but that profit can fuel creativity or consumption, you get to choose.” - Randy Komisar To hear more about the Silicon Valley Legend Randy Komisar, download and listen to the episode. Bio: Randy Komisar joined Kleiner Perkins in 2005 and focuses on early-stage investing. He served as CFO of GO Corp. and as senior counsel for Apple Computer, following a private practice in technology law. Randy is a founding director of TiVo and serves on the Roadtrip Nation Advisory Board and Orrick’s Women’s Leadership Board. Additionally, he is the author of the best-selling book The Monk and the Riddle, as well as several articles on leadership and entrepreneurship. Furthermore, he is the co-author of Straight Talk for Startups, the insider best practices for entrepreneurial success, Getting to Plan B, on managing innovation, and I F**king Love that Company, on building consumer brands. Randy frequently speaks in the United States and abroad on such topics. Randy holds a B.A. degree in economics from Brown University and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. Links: Amazon: Randy Komisar Kleiner Perkins Book: Straight Talk for Startups The Monk and the Riddle: The Art of Creating a Life While Making a Living  Executives Launch Podcast To Pass On Lessons From Bill Campbell, Coach To Silicon Valley Stars No Bull Podcast Harper Collins Speakers Bureau: Randy Komisar We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter,

Ep #27: I’m really excited to share with you my conversation with John Maeda — about Reinvention. This episode covers a lot of ground John talked about why we should focus on recover fast vs. fail fast, why inclusive design is so important, and why we should be using Anpanman to train our AI platforms. John is well known for so many things, across design, tech, and business worlds. He wrote one of my favorite books, titled “The Laws of Simplicity.” He’s also written extensively on design, leadership, and technology, has been a professor at MIT Media Lab, the president of Rhode Island School of Design, he has been and is an advisor and board member of many startups and companies, and for the last 3 or so years he has been the global head of computational design and inclusion at Automattic. Whether you know who John is or not, you’re in for a real treat because he’s just so insightful, and truly enjoyable to listen to. John will be speaking at the Interaction19 conference in Seattle in February.John Maeda is an American executive spearheading a new convergence across the design and technology industries. He joined Automattic in 2016 as Global Head of Computational Design + Inclusion and previously served as Design Partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB), a world-leading venture capital firm. Maeda can be found on Twitter discussing technology, business and design at @johnmaeda, one of TIME Magazine’s 140 Best Twitter Feeds.View a transcript of this episode on our websiteJohn's Youtube channelRebrand Cities, Hajj Fleming, CEO (build-a-thons in different cities) Helping small businesses build websitesJohn Gardner’s Essay “Self Renewal” Kahlil Gibran: Joy and Sorrowfrom his book The Prophet The Laws of Simplicityby John MaedaIn The Laws of Simplicity, John Maeda offers ten laws for balancing simplicity and complexity in business, technology, and design―guidelines for needing less and actually getting more.Redesigning Leadershipby John MaedaLessons for a new generation of leaders on teamwork, meetings, conversations, free food, social media, apologizing, and other topics.More resources from John available on his site https://maedastudio.comPortrait of John Maeda by Helena Price for Techies Project.Connect with UX Cake!Twitter Facebook Instagram www.uxcake.coYou can now support the future of the UX Cake podcast and be a part of the UX Cake community at Patreon.com/uxcake See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Straight Talk for Startups: 100 Insider Rules Randy Komisar is author of "Straight Talk for Startups: 100 Insider Rules for Beating the Odds--From Mastering the Fundamentals to Selecting Investors, Fundraising, Managing Boards, and Achieving Liquidity." He is also an entrepreneur and partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers, a Silicon Valley Venture Capital firm. In this episode, Randy and Brian Ardinger discuss why experience is so valuable now and why startups can stop worrying about scaling. For more background see https://www.kleinerperkins.com/people/randy-komisaror grab his book on Amazon at: https://amzn.to/2PiYqIf If you are interested in more insider rules for startups, check out Brian's interview with Jason Calacanis at https://insideoutside.io/podcast/ep-65-jason-calacanis-angel-investor-and-author-of-angel/   GET THE LATEST RESOURCES Get the latest episodes of the Inside Outside Innovation podcast, in addition to thought leadership in the form of blogs, innovation resources, videos, and invitations to exclusive events. SUBSCRIBE HERE For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy

For Chinese venture capitalist Wei Zhou, founding managing partner of China Creation Ventures, the changes he has witnessed in China during his professional life have been awe-inspiring. "When I graduated from university, most of my classmates were assigned jobs in semiconductor-related areas as we studied physical electronics. But they all left that industry because there was so little progress," Zhou told China Money Network in an interview in his firm's Beijing office two weeks ago. "Now, I think it is the best time to reinvest into that area." Granted, Zhou recognizes that Chinese companies still lag behind Silicon Valley when it comes to core research breakthroughs in artificial intelligence (AI) and other deep tech areas. But there are many positive developments in these sectors, creating new opportunities for VCs like himself. "For the past decade, we didn’t invest much in deep tech, because it didn’t make money. Now we see the rise of AI in China, even if it is not as cutting-edge like Google, but the advantage in China’s AI sector lies in the speed with which Chinese people and even Chinese government are adopting new things," Zhou said. "This high and rapid adoption is enabling new technology to find commercialized applications more easily and swiftly." For example, Zhou's firm invested recently in a company called CowaRobot, a low speed autonomous vehicle solutions company. One of the company's products is a road sweeping robot that is being tested in Changsha city, Hunan province. With around 300 cities in China with a population over one million, the potential mass commercialization of this robot could be huge. China Creation Ventures is also looking into sectors such as the private rocket launch industry in China, something that did not exist just a few years ago. In 2007, Zhou joined Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers China and was responsible for Internet, wireless, media and online financial services investments. He has observed how the spending behavior of Chinese millennial is creating new investment opportunities that would have not made sense a couple of years ago. "In the past, we always look for companies with potential to grow to over 200 million to 300 million users. We don’t want to invest in companies targeting users below 100 million because it’s too small. Now, even if a company only targets 30 million to 50 million users, it can still be very profitable and valuable," Zhou said, explaining that Chinese young people today pay for whatever they like online. One example that illustrates this trend is Himalaya FM, an audio platform in China and a portfolio company of Zhou's firm. The company recorded RMB196 million (US$30.5 million) in revenues in December 2017 when it did a membership promotion for two days, something that would have been unimaginable in the past when users were unwilling to pay for content online. Another anecdote illustrating this shifting behavior is that factory workers are sometimes spending 1/3 of their monthly salaries on mobile entertainment, Zhou said. In the past, Chinese factory workers would be saving most of their income to send to their families. China Creation Ventures completed fundraising for its first RMB fund at RMB1.5 billion (US$220 million) in July 2017, and reached first closing of its U.S. dollar dominated fund at nearly US$100 million three months later. Read an interview Q&A below. Also subscribe to China Money Podcast for free in the iTunes store, or subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Q: Which sectors do you find the best investment opportunities right now? A: There is a different "hot sector" every month nowadays and they are shifting rapidly. For us, we first look at the macro trends on what will happen in the next several years, instead of specific sectors. For example, we sensed a turning point about two years ago on China's young generation taking a more prominent role in shaping consumption power,

Innovasjon Norge har lansert The Explorer, utstillingsvinduet for næringslivet. Mary Meekers nye Internet Trend Report er ute og nå forlater tenåringene Facebook, men er det et problem?The ExplorerThe Explorer skal styrke Norges bærekraftige profil og gjøre norske bedrifter mer konkurransedyktige internasjonalt. Nettsiden skal åpne opp for nye markeder og bidra til å øke eksporten. Førsteinntrykket er alt annet enn godt. Internet trend reportMary Meeker er jo en 58 år gammel teknologinerd, investor og analytiker med lang erfaring fra Wall Street. I forrige uke la hun frem den årlige ‘Internet Trend Report’. Dette er 23. gang rapporten legges frem, og i rapporten ser de på de viktigste teknologi-trendene globalt. Rapporten lager hun sammen med investeringsselskapet Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Sosiale medier siden sist:Facebook viser ikke video-avspillinger i grupper Google lanserer programmatiske lyd-annonserTenåringene forlater Facebook. Og denne gangen gjør det det på "orntli"EU ett langt skritt nærmere lenke-skattAirbnb tar skrittet inn i sosiale medierPinterest vokser raskere enn Twitter og SnapchatStørst engasjement på sosiale medier i maiTakk for at du lytter på MediaPuls.Har du forslag til temaer og saker vi bør ta opp i MediaPuls, kan du komme med de via vår åpne sendedisposisjon på http://bit.ly/MediaInnspill. Eller spill inn en liten lydsnutt via Facebook Messenger. Eventuelt sender du oss en epost til enten hpnhansen (a) gmail dott com, eller marius (a) heltdigital dott no.Du finner Hans-Petter og Marius på http://HansPetter.info og http://Helt.Digital. Vi hadde satt stor pris på om du vil abonnere og rate oss på iTunes. Alle episoder legges ut fortløpende med lenker til alt vi har snakket om på http://Mediapuls.no. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

John Doerr, the chairman of the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, talks with Recode's Kara Swisher and Teddy Schleifer about his new book, "Measure What Matters: How Google, Bono, and the Gates Foundation Rock the World with OKRs." Doerr credits two mentors, Andy Grove and Bill Campbell, with turning him on to that leadership strategy, which is short for Objectives and Key Results — or, in other words, communicating what you want to accomplish and how. Setting clear objectives and making them transparent to your entire company can help tech leaders succeed, but CEOs who don't commit or who build a cult of personality around themselves can put their businesses in jeopardy. Doerr also talks about the state of diversity in Silicon Valley, what he learned from the Ellen Pao trial and whether tech companies are taking privacy more seriously in the aftermath of the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

China's healthcare sector is seeing a flood of new capital from from non-professional investors such as Chinese coal mining and factory bosses, according to James Huang, a managing partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB) China, who focuses on life sciences. As a result, valuations have become excessive, forcing more experienced investors to adopt new strategies to get ahead of the "dumb money." Huang, a long-time healthcare investor who previously worked at Vivo Ventures, say one strategy is to seek earlier stage investments to try to find true innovators. He often finds himself on university campuses talking to professors and top researchers, discovering and potentially backing pioneering research teams at the earliest possible stage an investor could go in. A pharmaceutical veteran who has worked at GlaxoSmithKline, Bristol-Meyers Squibb and ALZA Corp., Huang told China Money Network that half of the companies he's invested in have achieved exits. And having made 15 investments in China since 2007, Huang believes that only professional healthcare investors and industry professionals can achieve long-term success in the sector. As for the "dumb capital" chasing hot deals, it will slowly be washed out of the market.   Read an edited interview Q&A below. Also subscribe to China Money Podcast for free in the iTunes store, or subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Q: What are some major trends emerging in China's healthcare industry? A: I think what is happening in China’s healthcare market is really exciting. The China Food and Drug Administration (CFDA) initiated a major reform program around 18 months ago. There are sweeping changes in the way traditional generic drugs file for approval, what's required for approval, and how new branded products can start clinical trials and "green channels" for certain breakthrough therapies. For example, the time that companies have to wait for CFDA approval of HIV products they developed or discovered could be shortened to less than six months from the current two to three years. The new policy currently only applies to the HIV area, but CFDA is going to expand it to all the therapeutic areas for drug innovation. As a result, CFDA can greatly reduce its workload, and focus on the truly innovative drugs. That’s really exciting, because patients in China can now enjoy true generic drugs with lower prices. Q: Did the shortened approval time lead to even higher valuations for Chinese innovative drug companies? A: Well, it not only influenced the valuations, but also could increase the success rate of those companies. In this industry, time is money. To develop a new product is expensive. If you’re successful, the payoff is very high, but if you don’t have a good product, you want to kill it as soon as possible, so that they can start to focus on other new products. Q: With the new policy proposals and the emergence of a new wave of innovative drug start-ups, do you think China has a chance to become a leader in innovative drug development globally? A: In some medical technology areas, China is actually taking a leadership position, such as gene sequencing. China has the world's largest gene sequencing service company, BGI Genomics Co., Ltd. With more multinational companies coming to China and utilizing service providers like BGI, there exists more collaborations between young Chinese tech companies and foreign institutions. Also, for the very first time, CFDA reforms are allowing multinational clinical trials to be conducted, so we’ll see more cooperation between Chinese and foreign hospitals and medical schools. For the past few years, China has allowed companies to conduct central laboratory services for clinical trials. One company, a pioneer in the area is called Kindstar Global, offers central laboratory services for both hospitals and pharmaceutical companies conducting multinational clinical trials.

Investor Ellen Pao talks with Recode’s Kara Swisher about her new book, “Reset: My Fight for Inclusion and Lasting Change,” which chronicles Pao’s 2015 court battle against her former employer, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. She reflects on why the gender discrimination lawsuit ultimately failed, and why Pao believes it nevertheless laid the groundwork for future whistleblowers like ex-Uber employee Susan Fowler. She also talks about her ensuing work as interim CEO of Reddit, what she thinks of the controversial memo written by former Google engineer James Damore, and why we shouldn’t take tech companies’ proclamations of “free speech” idealism at face value. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Megan Quinn is a General Partner at Spark Capital, a venture capital firm that has invested in companies like Twitter, Postmates, Tumblr, and Slack. Megan grew up in Los Angeles surrounded by 4 sisters and first didn't intend to enter the technology sector. After moving up north to graduate from Stanford, she took a job at Google and helped the then-small company go public. As an avid collector of historical maps, she found her perfect dream job in Google's Maps division where she has held several leadership positions in marketing, product, and business development during her tenure at Google.  After 8 years at Google, she joined the next rocket ship as the Director of Product for payment processing company Square before switching sides and becoming an investor at Silicon Valley venture capital institution Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers where she led a number of the firm's early-stage and growth consumer investments.  As the first female partner at Spark Capital, today she invests in companies like Medium, Slack, and Grammarly.  In this episode, you'll learn from Megan: – What skill she recommends everybody should master, regardless of role or company. – How she says “Yes” to an opportunity first, and deals with the fear later. – How she transitioned from one role to the next. – How former Google exec and Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer helped her manage a tricky situation. – How she assesses investment opportunities.  – How she approaches working with mentors. … and much more. Follow Megan on Twitter and Medium: https://twitter.com/msquinn https://medium.com/@msquinn

Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers partner Mary Meeker delivers her annual report on global trends in tech usage, media consumption, advertising, investing, M&A and more. Consumers are increasingly going to be taking pictures of — or using their voice to search for — things they used to look for by typing, Meeker says, and she argues that the rise of interactive games has important lessons for the design of all products online. She also discusses how consumers are using mobile devices, on-demand transportation services and payments apps in China and India. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Filmed at the Upfront Summit 2017, Jason sits down with legendary entrepreneur-turned-investor, Vinod Khosla. In 1980, Vinod co-founded Daisy Systems, the first significant computer-aided design system for electrical engineers. In 1982, he made his early fortune as one of the co-founders of Sun Microsystems, and in 1987, he switched gears to join the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, where he gained huge recognition and appreciation as a venture capitalist. He is also widely known for launching Juniper Networks, a company which is believed to be the next Cisco. Currently, he is the founder of Khosla Ventures, a firm focused on assisting entrepreneurs to build impactful new energy and technology companies. Join us as Vinod Khosla shares his inspiring story of mistakes, lessons learned, and advice for entrepreneurs building technology-based businesses.

GeekGirl recently hosted its annual conference and Nancy is just one of the many amazing women in tech that spoke at our event. She just HAD to be on this podcast, and GeekGirl was eager to interview her - you'll find out more when you listen! Nancy is the Founder of The Inspire Movement, a new role after a great career in VC and in tech. She joined us for our Mental Health, Wellbeing and Our Devices panel and shared LOADS of useful insight. Enjoy! Nancy Fechnay is a founder, investor, mentor, and advisor for startups and accelerators. She is passionate about helping others find their purpose, achieve health of the mind and body, and – most of all – be happy! Nancy is the founder of The Inspire Movement, a new community of innovative thought leaders, who believe in the power of positive thinking and sharing personal stories of life's greatest challenges. She was previously Partner at Flight Ventures, the largest online group of investors in the world, brainchild of well-known angel investor Gil Penchina. Nancy oversaw their UK/EU operation focusing on large seed or Series A ($3M+) investments. As a mentor and advisor, Nancy's expertise span across innovation, strategy, business development, fundraising, and U.S. expansion. She currently advises several U.S. and UK early stage startups, and serves on the advisory board of a stealth wellness startup based in London. Nancy has worked for several U.S. based investment firms, including Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, GE Ventures, and Core Capital Partners. She is the co-founder of Duke Ventures, a venture capital educational and deal-sourcing engine that advises founders on business strategy and highlights the best Research Triangle Park startups to a network of active investors. Nancy has a Bachelor of Science degree in Systems Engineering (UVa), an MBA focused on entrepreneurship (Duke), and an MEM focused on energy (Duke). Website: http://www.theinspiremovement.com/#welcome Twitter: https://twitter.com/NancyFechnay

Cowboy Ventures founder and managing partner Aileen Lee, previously a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about being one of the few female venture capitalists in Silicon Valley. After leaving Kleiner Perkins in 2012, Lee set out to amass data about the small percentage of startups that become breakout success stories, and she coined the term "unicorn" to describe the small fraction that would be valued at more than $1 billion. She says entrepreneurs today have to be tougher now that investors' fervor has cooled off, and says those investors will have to change, too, by becoming more diverse. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As part of our Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB) engineering meet-up series, Eric Feng had the opportunity to host a panel of leaders of various functions at top tech companies to discuss best practices in cross group teamwork and collaboration -- Jessica Verrili, director of corporate development at Twitter; Eugene Wei, head of video at Oculus and previously head of product at Flipboard and Hulu; and Wendy Owen, product design lead for the Facebook ads platform.

Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers partner Mary Meeker delivers her annual internet trends report. She says "easy growth is behind us" as the newest internet users are coming from less developed and less affluent countries. Meeker also delves into artificial intelligence, Snapchat brand integrations, changes to live sports viewing habits, car industry innovation and the rise of millennial consumers, among many other topics. Visit Recode.net to see all 213 of Meeker's slides and follow along. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ron is a seasoned consultant with more than 25 years of experience working with CEOs and senior executives of organizations ranging from Fortune 50s to start-ups in pursuit of transformational change. His consulting has taken him to more than 20 different countries on four continents. He has consulted to some of the world’s most influential CEOs and executives on issues ranging from strategy to organization to leadership. He has worked extensively in the health sciences, biotech, and healthcare provider sectors and in the technology, consumer products, and retail food and beverage industries. He has led work on several large-scale merger integrations and subsequent culture change initiatives and enterprise-level global organizational redesigns. Ron specializes in the areas of: Strategy formulation – helping companies establish strategic direction in a collaborative fashion that builds ownership Global organization design and enterprise governance – helping organizations configure capabilities and decision-making processes to execute strategy Organizational change – designing comprehensive approaches to enrolling organizations into the transformation journey Executive leadership development – building deeply impacting solutions to build individual and enterprise leadership capability across generations Enterprise talent strategy – building integrated HR mechanisms to help create competitively differentiated talent solutions for selection, development, and succession He has helped CEOs, their executive teams, and their enterprises redesign themselves and build appropriate talent strategies to ensure the current and next generation of leaders have the capabilities required by the organization. He has been chief architect of several major leadership development simulations and curriculums for global organizations focused on developing high-potential executive talent and connecting strategy execution to leadership capability. Ron has spent the last several years exploring his new passion of ushering in the next generation of leaders, helping organizations connect multigenerational workplaces, and helping emerging leaders discover their unique voice and leadership strengths. He has spoken around the world on numerous topics pertaining to developing leaders of tomorrow. Ron is a former faculty member at Fordham University Graduate School as an associate professor of organizational behavior. He has also served as an adjunct at the Center for Creative Leadership. He is author/co-author of eight books, including the most recent best-selling Rising to Power: The Journey of Exceptional Executives (Greenleaf 2014) with colleague Eric Hansen, The Value-Creating Consultant (AMACOM, 2000) Relationships That Enable Enterprise Change (Jossey-Bass, 2002), the acclaimed Leadership Divided, What Emerging Leaders Need and What You Might Be Missing (Jossey-Bass, 2006) and its companion Facilitator's and Field Guides, Bridging the Leadership Divide (Jossey-Bass, 2010), Future in-Formation: Choosing a Generative Organizational Life (Outskirts, 2008) with colleague Josh Epperson, and Leadership Stories from Tomorrow (Xulon, 2009). He has authored numerous articles and book chapters on the issues of executive leadership and organizational change. His clients have included CitiBank, Corning, Inc., The Hershey Company, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Amgen, Deutsche Bank, Gates Corporation, ConAgra Foods, TriHealth, OhioHealth, Del Monte Foods, Midnight Oil Creative, Weyerhaeuser, McDonald’s Corporation, Starbucks, Microsoft, Sojourners, The Atlantic Philanthropies, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Cadbury, Miller Brewing, the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, Price Waterhouse Coopers, Johnson & Johnson, ADP, and the CIA. Seth Greene is a 6 Time Best Selling Author, Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

(Bloomberg) -- This week on Bloomberg Studio 1.0: Hosts Emily Chang and Brad Stone hear from Ellen Pao - the woman who sued her former employer, VC firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, for gender bias and lost on all counts. Here, she speaks for the first time since the trial.

Design has become a critical component for business and technology in the modern era. On this episode, John Maeda presents findings from his DesignInTech 2016 report.John is an American executive spearheading a new convergence across the design and technology industries. He currently advises dozens of technology startups as a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, a world-leading venture capital firm in Silicon Valley. In addition, Maeda serves on the Board of Sonos and Wieden+Kennedy, and on the Technical Advisory Board for Google’s ATAP.

Design has become a critical component for business and technology in the modern era. On this episode, John Maeda presents findings from his DesignInTech 2016 report.John is an American executive spearheading a new convergence across the design and technology industries. He currently advises dozens of technology startups as a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, a world-leading venture capital firm in Silicon Valley. In addition, Maeda serves on the Board of Sonos and Wieden+Kennedy, and on the Technical Advisory Board for Google’s ATAP.

(Bloomberg) -- Emily Chang sits down with John Doerr and Beth Seidenberg, general partners of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. This episode aired June 18, 2015.

As a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Dana Mead supports entrepreneurs and innovators seeking to make major impact through life science technologies and ventures. In this lecture, Mead talks about Venture Capital, offering great insights about Silicon Valley and life as a venture capitalist.

As a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Dana Mead supports entrepreneurs and innovators seeking to make major impact through life science technologies and ventures. In this lecture, Mead talks about Venture Capital, offering great insights about Silicon Valley and life as a venture capitalist.

She was once known as Queen of the Net. Investment analyst Mary Meeker is leaving Morgan Stanley to join one of Silicon Valley's most influential venture capital firms, Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers.

Randy Komisar, Partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, discusses entrepreneurship and innovation in Silicon Valley. (April 7, 2010)

Aired 01/13/09 CHRISTOPHER FLAVIN is President of the Worldwatch Institute, a Washington-based international research organization focused on energy, resource and environmental issues. Worldwatch is recognized around the world for its pathbreaking work on the global connections between economic, social, and environmental trends. Chris has spent his career at Worldwatch where he previously served as Senior Vice President and Vice President for Research. Chris is co-author of three books on energy, including Power Surge: Guide to the Coming Energy Revolution, which anticipated many of the changes now under way in world energy markets. Chris is a regular co-author of the Institute's annual State of the World report, which has been published in 36 languages. He has participated in several historic international conferences, including the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 and the Climate Change Conference in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997. Chris is a founding member of the Board of Directors of the Business Council for Sustainable Energy and serves as a board member of the Climate Institute and the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies in Japan. He is on the advisory boards of the American Council on Renewable Energy, and the Environmental and Energy Study Institute. He is also a member of the Greentech Innovation Network, an initiative of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. TEN KEY CHALLENGES (Excerpted from The Perfect Storm by CHRISTOPHER FLAVIN and Robert Engelman, Chapter One of STATE OF THE WORLD 2009, A Worldwatch Institute Report on Progress Toward a Sustainable Society.) Ten challenges must be met in order to create the world of zero net greenhouse gas emissions that will be needed to achieve climate stability. Thinking Long-term Human beings have evolved to be very good at focusing on an immediate threat-whether it is wild animals the first humans faced on the plains of Africa or the financial panic that gripped the world in late 2008. Climate change is a uniquely long-range problem: its effects appear gradual on a human time scale, and the worst effects will likely be visited on people not yet alive. To solve this problem, we must embrace the future as our responsibility and consider the impact of today's decisions on future generations. Just as Egyptians built pyramids and Europeans built cathedrals to last millennia, we need to start acting as if the future of the planet matters beyond our own short lives. Innovation The world needs to develop and disseminate technologies that maximize the production and use of carbon-free energy while minimizing cost and optimizing convenience. (Convenience matters: the ease of transporting, storing, and using carbon-based fuels is among their attractions, not captured in price alone.) An effective climate pact will offer incentives that accelerate technological development and ensure that renewable energy and other low-emission technologies are deployed in all countries regardless of ability to pay the costs. We need to dramatically increase the efficiency with which we use carbon-based energy and lower release into the atmosphere of land-based CO2, methane, nitrogen oxides, and greenhouse gases stemming from cooling and various industrial processes. The opportunities for quick and inexpensive emissions reductions remain vast and mostly untapped. Population It is essential to reopen the global dialogue on human population and promote policies and programs that can help slow and eventually reverse its growth by making sure that all women are able to decide for themselves whether and when to have children. A comprehensive climate agreement would acknowledge both the impacts of climate change on vulnerable populations and the long-term contribution that slower growth and a smaller world population can play in reducing future emissions under an equitable climate framework. And it should renew the commitment that the world's nations made in 1994 to address population not by pressuring parents to have fewer or more children than they want but by meeting the family planning, health, and educational needs of women. Changing Lifestyles The world's climate cannot be saved by technology alone. The way we live will have to change as well-and the longer we wait the larger the needed sacrifices will be. In the United States, the inexorable increase in the size of homes and vehicles that has marked the past few decades has been a major driver of greenhouse gas emissions and the main reason that U.S. emission are double those of other industrial countries. Lifestyle changes will be needed, some of which seem unattractive today. But in the end, the things we may need to learn to live without - oversized cars and houses, status-based consumption, easy and cheap world travel, meat with every meal, disposable everything - are not necessities or in most cases what makes people happy. The oldest among us and many of our ancestors willingly accepted such sacrifices as necessary in times of war. This is no war, but it may be such a time. Healing Land We need to reverse the flow of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from destroyed or degraded forests and land. Soil and vegetation can serve as powerful net removers of the atmosphere's carbon and greenhouse gases. Under the right management, soil alone could absorb each year an estimated 13 percent of all human-caused carbon dioxide emissions. To the extent we can make the land into a more effective "sink" for these gases we can emit modest levels essential for human development and wellbeing. Like efficiency, however, an active sink eventually faces diminishing returns. And any sink needs to be secured with "drain stoppers" to prevent easy return of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere when conditions change. Strong Institutions "Good governance" can be a cliché-until someone needs it to survive. The final months of 2008 laid painfully bare the dangerous imbalance between a freewheeling global economy and a regulatory system that is a patchwork of disparate national systems. And if there was ever a global phenomenon, the climate is it. In fact it is not hard to imagine the climate problem driving a political evolution toward global governance over the long term, but given the public resistance to that idea the next most effective climate-regulating mechanism will be the strength and effectiveness of the United Nations, multilateral banks, and major national governments. New institutions and new funds will be needed, but it could take a major public awakening or a dramatically deteriorating climate to overcome the obstacles to inventing and establishing them. The Equity Imperative A climate agreement that can endure and succeed will find mechanisms for sharing the burden of costs and potential discomforts. Per capita fossil fuel CO2 emissions in the United States are almost five times those in Mexico and more than 20 times the levels in most of sub-Sahara. An effective climate agreement will acknowledge the past co-optation of Earth's greenhouse-gas absorbing capacity by the wealthiest and most industrialized countries and the corresponding need to reserve most of what little absorbing capacity is left for countries in development. Most people live in such countries, and they bear little responsibility for causing this problem -though it is worth recalling that a small but growing share of their populations already have large carbon footprints. Economic Stability In the fall of 2008 the global economy foundered, raising the obvious question: can a world heading into hard economic times add to its burdens the costs of switching from fossil to renewable fuels or managing precious land for carbon sequestration? Any climate agreement built on an assumption of global prosperity is doomed to failure. And as growing and increasingly affluent populations demand more of the resources of a finite planet, we may have to balance the future of climate against present realities of hunger, poverty, and disease. A robust international climate regime will need to design mechanisms that will operate consistently in anemic as well as booming economic times. And a strong pact will be built on principles and innovations that acknowledge and accommodate the problem of cost - while building in monitoring techniques to ensure that efficiency is not achieved at the expense of effective and enduring emission cuts and adaptation efforts. Political Stability A world distracted by major wars or outbreaks of terrorism will not be able to stay focused on the more distant future. And just such a focus is needed to prevent future changes in climate and adapt to the ones already occurring. A climate pact could encourage preemptive action to diminish insecurity caused or exacerbated by climate change. But unless nations can find ways to defuse violent conflict and minimize the chance that terrorism will distract and disrupt societies, climate change prevention and adaptation (along with development itself) will take a back seat. On the bright side, negotiating an effective climate agreement offers countries an opportunity, if they will only seize it, to practice peace, to look beyond the narrowness of the interests within their borders at their dependence on the rest of the world, to see humanity as a single vulnerable species rather than a collection of nations locked in pointless and perpetual competition. Mobilizing for Change As fear of climate change has grown in recent years, so has political action. But opponents of action have repeatedly pointed to the vast costs of reducing emissions. At a time of serious economic problems, the power of that argument is growing, and some of those who are persuaded are going straight from denial to despair. The most effective response to both of those reactions is, in the words of Common Cause founder John Gardner, to see global warming as "breathtaking opportunities disguised as insoluble problems." Solving the climate problem will create the largest wave of new industries and jobs the world has seen in decades. Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania in the United States are among those that have devoted enormous efforts to attracting new energy industries - with a glancing reference to climate change and a major focus on creating new jobs to revive "rustbelt" economies. In November 2009, the world faces a test. Will the roughly 200 national governments that meet in Copenhagen to forge a new climate agreement come up with a new protocol that provides both vision and a roadmap, accelerating action around the globe? The challenges are many: Will the global financial crisis and conflict in the Middle East distract world leaders? Will the new US president have time to bring his country back into a leadership position? Will the global North-South divide that has marked climate talks in recent years be overcome? Climate change is not a discrete issue to be addressed apart from all the others. The global economy fundamentally drives climate change, and economic strategies will need to be revised if the climate is ever to be stabilized - and if we are to satisfy the human needs that the global economy is ultimately intended to meet. We cannot afford to have the Copenhagen climate conference fail. The outcome of this meeting will be written in the world's history books - and in the lasting composition of our common atmosphere. ----------------------------------------------------- WORLDWATCH INSTITUTE delivers the insights and ideas that empower decision makers to create an environmentally sustainable society that meets human needs. Worldwatch focuses on the 21st-century challenges of climate change, resource degradation, population growth, and poverty by developing and disseminating solid data and innovative strategies for achieving a sustainable society. For more information, visit www.worldwatch.org

Beth Seidenberg, partner at venture firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, speaks at length about KPCB's current areas of interest, and its litmus test for projects worth supporting. Seidenberg also offers a case study of a life sciences firm moving from research lab toward market.

Download the MP3. The name Tom Perkins is now almost synonymous with venture capital, but it's clear that he cut his teeth as an entrepreneur. Educated at MIT and Harvard, Perkins first made his mark by managing the initial growth of Hewlett-Packard’s computer business while simultaneously inventing the first cheap and reliable laser. The company he built around the laser, University Laboratories, made him independently wealthy and allowed for the creation of Kleiner Perkins, one of the most successful venture capital firms in existence. Kleiner Perkins (now Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers) has funded a wide range of well known and wildly successful companies including Google, AOL, Genentech, Sun Microsystems, Compaq, and Tandem Computers. Though Tom's wowed the business press for much of his career, later in life he's gained national attention for having a key role in 2006 Hewlett-Packard board controversy, briefly marrying Danielle Steel, and building the world's largest privately owned sailing yacht. Tom has recently stepped back into the media spotlight by publishing a memoir called Valley Boy: The Education of Tom Perkins. Listen in as he discusses his journey from New York to Boston to Silicon Valley, the creation of Kleiner Perkins, and his advice for the entrepreneurs of the future.

Audio File:  Download MP3Transcript: An Interview with Kim Polese CEO, SpikeSource, Inc. Date: July 17, 2007 NCWIT Interview with Kim Polese BIO: Kim Polese is the Chairman at CrowdSmart and former CEO of SpikeSource, Inc., a software company based in Silicon Valley. The company is backed by venture firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and has developed an advanced automated testing technology for certifying interoperability of open source software, creating a continual "UL"-style certification for Global 2000 companies that depend on open source software applications to run their core business operations. The automation enables the delivery of low-cost, high-quality software to a mass market, resulting in more affordable and dependable software applications for business of all sizes worldwide. Prior to joining SpikeSource in August 2004, Kim co-founded Marimba, Inc., a leading provider of systems management solutions, in 1996. Marimba was acquired by BMC Software in June 2004. Kim served as President, Chief Executive Officer, and Chairman of Marimba, leading the company through a successful public offering and to profitability in 2000. Before co-founding Marimba, Kim worked in software management at Sun Microsystems and was the original product manager for Java, leading its launch in 1995. Prior to joining Sun, Kim was with IntelliCorp Inc., consulting for Fortune 500 companies in the development of expert systems. Kim earned a Bachelor’s degree in Biophysics from the University of California, Berkeley and studied Computer Science at the University of Washington in Seattle. Kim serves on several boards, including the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, the University of California President's Board on Science and Innovation, UC Berkeley's College of Engineering, the Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science, and the Global Security Institute. Lucy Sanders: Hi, this is Lucy Sanders. I'm the CEO of the National Center for Women in Information Technology. This interview is one in a series of interviews that we're doing with fabulous IT entrepreneurs. With me today are Larry Nelson and Lee Kennedy. Larry is CEO of w3w3.com, and Lee is an insulate director. Welcome, Larry and Lee. Larry Nelson: Well, thank you. That's so great being able to get together and help support this type of thing. The Heroes program is sponsored by NCWIT, wonderful. At w3w3.com we archive everything and we push it out. We have a large audience, and we're happy to be part of this. Lee Kennedy: Thanks, Lucy. I'm excited to be here and be part of the interview series. Lucy: Today we're interviewing Kim Polese. We're so excited, Kim, to have you on the call. Kim Polese: Thank you, delighted to be here. Lucy: I have to say that your career has been one that I think is just awesome. When I look back at some of the things you've been involved with for example Java. I remember when Sun released Java. Us techies at Bell Labs were pretty excited about that, because it really enabled the Internet to come alive. You could bring applications along with the static web pages. That was just tremendously thrilling. Then, when you moved over into Marimba, worked on push technology, again, we were all rather thrilled that we could have stuff come to our desktop without even asking for it. That's pretty amazing. And now you have a new company Spikesource is a couple of years old, is that right? Kim: Yes. Actually, it was founded in 2003 and I joined. It was an incubation project at Kline & Perkins, a venture firm here in Silicon Valley. I joined in the fall of 2004. Lucy: I just think you've been on the leading edge of all of these different trends in software and software development. Why don't you give the listeners a little bit of information about Spikesource? Kim: Sure. I'd be happy to. So, Spikesource, basically its mission is in a nutshell to democratize software, and do that by bringing open source software to a mass market. When I say "democratize software", I mean make software as low‑cost and as easy to maintain, to use as possible. Software's a wonderful thing; it powers all sorts of service and appliances, the world around use every day. But it's also really complicated both to develop, package, maintain and support. Open source has provided a wonderful new abundance, a new ecosystem of software applications, components and infrastructure. It is really totally changing the software industry in a variety of ways, and really accelerating innovation. Software is getting better faster. There are many more people who are banging on it and making it better every day. That's a wonderful thing. It's an exciting time to be in the software world. But there's also a challenge with abundance. Businesses that have been using open source find very quickly that they get into a lot of overhead time and cost in maintaining open source application. The applications typically consist of dozens or hundreds of different open source components, all of which need to be updated, maintained and made to work together, continually integrated and tested. That's a huge problem. So, what Spikesource is doing is really helping that problem through automation. We're automating specifically the process of maintaining that software and ensuring that the software applications continue to work, stay up and running and are free of viruses, and so forth. It's really making the process of maintaining open source software invisible to the user. We're using very interesting approaches in computer science and automating the build test patch process, and creating an automatic test framework for basically packaging up, distributing, supporting and maintaining these open source applications. We're bringing to market a variety of open source applications. Basically taking many of the best applications out there on the Internet, email, content management, business intelligence, CRM and so forth, and offering those as packaged applications to business of all sizes. There's a low‑cost subscription maintenance stream along with it. So, in this way when I said "democratizing software", again, it's really about making software much easier to buy, to use, and to have supported at a much lower cost. That's now all possible because of open source and because of the new technologies that we're working on and others are participating in as well in innovating, automating and maintaining the software. Lucy: I think that the technologies involved with software engineering are some of the most complex. No question. And so, I can only imagine that the technologies that you're using at Spikesource are pretty advanced. Kim: Yes. Lucy: For sure. And that gets me to the first question that we wanted to ask you. In addition to some of the technologies that you're using today at Spikesource, what other technologies do you see on the horizon that you find particularly cool? Kim: Well, the open source world is really where most of the most interesting innovation is happening, in my view, in software today. That's because of the power of collaboration. You take, for example, virtualization. Virtualization, or virtualization software, there's a huge amount of innovation happening there. You see a lot of not only developers all over the world who are contributing to open source virtualization technologies, but also big companies that are standardizing on open source and using it to drive greater value in their hardware platforms. So, to me in general the most exciting place to be in software today is in the open source world. In virtually every category there's tremendous innovation happening and really a new generation of software is being developed. And there are a lot of very important supporting technologies and underlying infrastructure that's also helping make this happen. A lot of the service‑oriented architecture, the web services, the easy to use now APIs that make it possible to put pieces of software together more easily, and new techniques like Agile programming and so forth to make it easier to build software faster... But so much of that, again, really does come out of the open source world. We're finding that the open source model of building software is becoming more prevalent even within companies and across companies in vertical industries such as financial services and retail. Companies are now beginning to collaborate on creating applications that they can share to make their respective businesses more efficient. Lucy: In fact, I'm on a commission looking at the R&D ecosystem for IT. We were at Harvard and we listened to a researcher not too long ago who was studying open source and the movement of companies into open source. It was pretty interesting how that platform is really emerging. How did you first get into technology, Kim? Kim: I was actually a girl geek. I grew up in Berkeley, California and I was fortunate to really be exposed to science at a very early age. I started entering science fairs as a kid in elementary school and just found that I loved the idea of creating something new and exploring, and testing the limits of what was possible. Then, I found a place called the Lords Hall of Science, which is a public science museum here in the Bay Area. I went up there, again, as a kid in elementary school and started playing on the computers. There was a program called Eliza which was an early artificial intelligence software application that was running on the computers there. It was kind of like an online psychotherapist, and I really loved playing on the computer that ran Eliza and trying to get Eliza to go into a loop or act like a computer, again, see the limits of what was possible. So, all of that sparked my curiosity, my interest in not only science but specifically computers and software. I ultimately ended up getting a degree in biophysics, but at Berkeley I started to get more and more into computer programming and software development as an undergrad. That increasingly became where my interests were directed. Lucy: That's really cool. Kim, tell us why you're an entrepreneur and what it is about entrepreneurship that really makes you tick. Kim: Well, I've always loved creating new things. I love inventing and coming up with a new idea, running with it and seeing what's possible. There's nothing more exciting than setting out with a whole team of people on a mission, climb a mountain and actually doing it together, making it happen. So, I think it's the creativity. It's the element of being able to chart your own course, come up with your own idea. It's the challenge of making that idea actually into a successful business, which is two very distinct elements to building a successful company in the technology area. One is coming up with a great technology, but the other is actually making it work in the economic sense and the sense of the market acceptance. That turned out to be a whole separate creative process. All of that is very challenging. I love a challenge. I love climbing mountains and scaling new heights, because it's just fun when you get there and it's fun along the way. So, I found that that was just something I gravitated towards. I think it's just something that's been inside me forever. Lucy: And it's a pretty good view when you get to the top. Larry: I'll say. Kim, I can't help but reflect back. Quite some time ago, did I hear that you were one of those early radicals that were pushing free and open source software? Kim: Well, I did grow up in Berkeley, it's true. And I was hanging out at Cal when Bill Joy was a grad student. So, I do have it probably in my DNA by now. But I didn't actually get to immerse myself in open source until I joined Spikesource in 2004 and really started doing it as full‑time and really wrapping my head around the whole open source world and building a business. Larry: You've done a wonderful job. Now, you mentioned Bill Joy. We interview him probably five, six, seven years ago. Along the line, did you have any particular mentor, or support person or support group that really helped along the way? Kim: Well, I was very fortunate to work at a great company for seven years, Sun Microsystems. Sun was full of very bright I'd say demanding, people where there was a bar that was set high and you had to achieve more than you thought you were capable of. I look at the management team, the founders of Sun, Scott, Scott McNealy, Bill Joy, Vinod Khosla and Andy Bechtolsheim. They really were a great inspiration to me, each of them. Also, to me, at that time in the '80s as I was developing my career, Carol Vartz, who was a senior executive at Sun at the time, I really looked up to her. Sandy Kurtzig, Heidi Roizen, these were women who were really leading the way in building companies and proving that women could achieve great things in technology and software. So, I was surrounded I guess by many inspirational leaders, and I learned what I could from each of them and then really molded that into what I decided to do next, how I developed my career. Lucy: Kim, you've been in the thick of Silicon Valley and all the changes that have taken place over the last 10, 20 years, and you've had such an exciting career. When you look back, what's the toughest thing that you've had to do in your career? Kim: Well, there are many challenges in building a company. I'd say probably the toughest thing as a manager is letting someone go. It's actually making a decision that you know is right for the company and right for ultimately that individual, but always a tough thing to do. I'd say that's probably the top of the list, and that's just one of those management challenges that everyone has to deal with at a certain point. So, that's on the not so fun part. There are also challenges just inherently in building a business. I'd say the other thing that I have faced repeatedly, but actually is kind of a fun challenge, is the need to adapt to change. When you're starting a company and you're in a new market, you've got a new idea, it's unproven, there's precedent, you can't become attached to that one plan that you're going to execute on it. There's always going to be a reason why it doesn't exactly turn out that way, another twist in the path, another unexpected obstacle, but then unexpected opportunity at the same time. And so, adapting to change and being comfortable with change on a daily basis is something that can real tough at first, but once you get used to it, it's actually exhilarating. You love the challenge of being able to rise to the occasion and adjust course, change course as needed, and still keep your eye on the ultimate goal that you're headed towards. It's just that the path along the way is different from what you thought it would be. I'd say that's a more fun, tough thing that I've faced in business. Lucy: Well, and in face you ultimately get to the place where you really enjoy change. You wouldn't want to be working in something where that wasn't part of what you did every day. It really becomes part of the challenge. I think that's wonderful advice. You can share with us, a bit more advice that you might give to young people about entrepreneurship if they were sitting in the room with you right now. Kim: Sure. Well, there is a lot to say. If I were to boil it down to some of the things that come to mind first, it really has to do what I was just talking about. You might have a great idea, but you can't forget the market that you are launching it into, and all of the other constituents that need to contribute to the success of what you are setting out to do. For example, you may be launching a product in the market; the most brilliant product that anyone has developed or thought of but it turns out that it's just too early. A good example of this is I worked in artificial intelligence, AI, software back in the 80's. We built a fantastic software system that was an expert system, but the hardware requirements were prohibitive in terms of cost and just the overall expense of delivering an expert system. You had $50000.00+ computers required, and ultimately there wasn't a mass market for that back in the 80's. The software wasn't ready for the environment around it that it needed to rely on, so for entrepreneurs I'd say don't get too enamored of your idea. Make sure that you see the full picture and that you find a way to make it palatable in the market today and then chart a path to where you ultimately believe you can go and what the ultimate end goal is. But, don't be too wrapped up with getting to the end goal right off the bat. So, that's one thing. The other thing I'd say is get comfortable with saying "no" because as an entrepreneur you want to say "yes" to every possibility and every potential customer and partner that comes along. There is a temptation to do that, especially early on. You have to have the discipline to say, "You know what? We'd love to deliver this product into both the enterprise market and the consumer market, and we know the software is capable of working for both markets, but we're just going to focus on the enterprise market". That's the first step. From there we can build a bigger company and ultimately get to the broader market. Saying "no", we had to do this at Marimba, a decision we made very early on to focus on the enterprise and not the consumer market. It turned out to be the best decision we made, but it was a very tough one at the time because I knew we could do anything. We could absolutely serve a broader market, but you have to have the discipline to know what you are capable of and take one step at a time. Lucy: That's some very sage advice. What personal characteristics do you think have given you advantages as an entrepreneur? Kim: Probably the greatest one is persistence. It's never losing sight of that goal that you are charging toward and never losing faith that you will achieve that goal and being totally flexible and able to deal with any obstacle that comes along. Whether it's an obstacle in the market, a challenge with the team, whatever it happens to be, never giving up, never ever, ever, ever giving up. If you have that, you'll find a way to get to where you are going no matter what. I think that's probably for every successful entrepreneur you will find that that is the primary characteristic that made them. Lucy: In fact, we're finding that with this series of interviews. I believe that one of the people we interviewed a few weeks ago said there is this line between persistence and pesky. And it's OK to cross over it from time to time. Kim: Yeah, that's probably true. Lucy: I want to switch a minute into this issue of balance. I know there is a lot written about work and personal balance, and so we just wanted to ask, how do you bring balance into your life? Kim: Well, that's a great question. One thing I've always made sure to do is to continue to pursue the things I love to do in the rest of my life. One thing I love is dance. I've always done that, and I still do ballet and jazz. I've done it since I was a kid and will never stop. I find that it's tremendous; it's literally all balance. It's a great counterpoint, too, to do what I do all day long. It's also requires great focus and attention, and you just can't sort of space out while you're learning a piece of choreography. So, that's one thing I love. I love also mountain biking and getting out and just charging up a mountain. So, those are the things I have always done and will continue to do. I find also that the mind‑body balance is really important. If you are physically fit your mind is much sharper and you are able to run a marathon in business as well as physically. So, that's one way. The other is just time for family and friends. I always make time for family and friends. It's not enough ever, but you have to stand back every so often and think about what's really important in life. Those connections and relationships are really more important than anything, so I try and not always succeed as well as I'd like. But, I try as much as possible to keep that at the forefront, too. Larry Nelson: Kim, I want to thank you for what you've shared so far. It's easy to see by the discussion here why you were chosen as one of the heroes, that's for sure. Now, you have already achieved a great deal, and I know you are going to take Spike Source to another level. In addition to Spike Source, what is your next thing? What are you going to do next? Kim: Well, one thing I've always done is actually not plan too far in advance. Lucy: That's a good idea. Kim: The reason is sort of tongue‑in‑cheek, but I find that serendipity is a wonderful thing. I am in the most dynamic, exciting industry and, I think, place for the area and the world. I am surrounded by brilliant, creative people, and that network is ever expanding so I know that whatever I do next it will evolve from creating something new together with a team of people and doing our best to make an impact in some positive way in the world. I personally would like to find a way to make an impact in the world that goes beyond my industry. I haven't quite figured out when and how and what that will be, but that's something that I'd like to do in my life. I'm sure that the path will appear as it always has. As long as I follow my passion and surround myself with people that I love working with and respect and appreciate, I know that life will unfold in wonderful ways. I have faith. Lucy: I think that's just really well said. I'm just sitting here thinking you are just one of the top web entrepreneurs of our age. It's wonderful. We are so thrilled to have talked to you. Kim: Thank you. I am more than honored to be part of this series. Thank you. Larry: A couple of words that stick out in my mind, too, in addition to hear all this democratized, open source and serendipity. Lucy: That's great. And see I'm a techie so what stands out for me, open source, Java. So, Kim, thank you, thank you very much. Kim: Thank you. Lucy: We appreciate your joining us. I want to remind listeners where these podcasts can be found at www.ncwit.org and also at w3w3.com. Please do pass these along to friends who might want to listen. Kim, thanks again. Kim: Thank you, my pleasure. Series: Entrepreneurial HeroesInterviewee: Kim PoleseInterview Summary: Kim Polese has technology -- and innovation -- in her blood. Ever wondered who coined the term "Java"? That was Kim. Release Date: July 17, 2007Interview Subject: Kim PoleseInterviewer(s): Lucy Sanders, Larry Nelson, Lee KennedyDuration: 20:04

Download the MP3. It’s not easy to stand out at Kleiner Perkins, one of the most prestigious venture capital shops in Silicon Valley that counts Google in its portfolio. Though Randy Komisar joined the firm just this year, it’s clear he’s not a typical venture capitalist. He once was a lawyer, but openly admits to hating being a lawyer and has been running from the law (well, from the practice of law) for most of his career. He’s played top roles at Claris Corporation, LucasArts Entertainment and TiVo. Now he’s ready to build a legacy at Kleiner Perkins. Show notes:

It’s not easy to stand out at Kleiner Perkins, one of the most prestigious venture capital shops in Silicon Valley that counts Google in its portfolio. Though Randy Komisar joined the firm just this year, it’s clear he’s not a typical venture capitalist.…