Something Ventured Posts

Parker Conrad lists himself as “customer support” at Rippling, but he is its co-founder and CEO.  He previously founded Zenefits.  In this episode he traces his journey from a journalist at Harvard, to founder and CEO of a company that has raised over $50 million.

Episode Highlights:

The specific thing he likes about sales
“I really liked sales. I enjoyed it. But I liked it in a very specific way:  I enjoyed selling something that I had built. I didn’t want anyone else explaining why it was great or what was so awesome about it, because they were going to screw it up somehow. They were not going to get it right when they were talking to people and telling them what’s great about this. I wanted to build the thing that I was selling.”

His fundraising ‘trick’
“Just find a way to be the Twitter guys (a fast growing company at the time which VCs were throwing money at) That was really the answer. And I think that that’s actually the right answer for most entrepreneurs.  Most of the “tactics” around fundraising don’t really matter. They’re such a rounding error. The important thing is to build a business that’s so compelling that they can’t afford to ignore you. And then all the other rules go out the window. And then it’s like very easy to raise. And if you can’t build something that is that compelling, then God help you.”

Why he’s motivated to build an HR management company
“I am an unusually resentful of the sort of busy work, administrative work. It’s why I was so resentful of having to of fax in insurance applications at my first company. If you can connect all of those underlying system and you can automate that and make it really seamless, that all disappears. And so in this sort of perverse way I really get excited about stomping that out for customers, because I’m the primary user of our product.”.

Rippling

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Scott Simpson worked on digital books at Amazon, then podcasting at Apple.  Thus, a key guy on two technologies that revolutionized the “long tail” of content.  And then…he left to start a standup comedy show.  “Cheaper Than Therapy”,  housed in San Francisco’s Shelton Theater, presents about 6 standup comedy shows a week, almost always sold out.  

Then Covid hit Cheaper Than Therapy and standup comedy everywhere.  In this episode we discuss Scott’s path from tech to comedy, and the affects of Covid on the future of comedy.  We discuss how well jerry-rigged alternatives to standup comedy are working, as well as the dire state of performance businesses in general.

Listen on iTunes, Spotify or wherever you get podcasts.

Scott’s podcast:  California King https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/california-king/id1506058005

Cheaper Than Therapy 
https://cttcomedy.com

Scott on Twitter:

@scottsimpson

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“As an entrepreneur, tech CEO and venture capitalist who is also a woman of color, I am well aware of the challenges most entrepreneurs face when it comes to raising capital.”  

So Promise Phelon summarizes with typical grace what she has learned in an amazing career.  Her book, “The Way of the Growth Warrior” – well you can’t get it yet.  You can pre-order it in the link below.  In the meantime, you can hear her story in this episode.

Promise Phelon started that career at BEA Systems, where she became Head of Product Marketing.  While a Black woman running marketing at BEA in the 1990s might be its own story, it was just her beginning.

Listen on iTunes, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

The Growth Warrior https://thegrowthwarrior.com

Something Ventured https://somethingventured.us

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“Most Black computer science students think Silicon Valley companies are racist.”  If you didn’t know this already – you should really sit down and listen to this episode.

No one educates more Black students in computer science than Codepath.  Codepath is the non-profit co-founded by Michael Ellison to eliminate educational inequity in technical careers.  Every year Codepath teaches hundreds of college students the skills they need to get jobs at companies like Facebook, Google and Amazon.

In this episode, Michael shares his stark assessment of how Silicon Valley treats Black engineers, including CS students who may have not gone to a ‘top’ school.  He discusses the toll both Covid and the recent events like the George Floyd killing have taken on Black students.

Michael shares what Silicon Valley leaders – venture capitalists and companies alike – can do to empower Black engineering students who seek jobs, or seek to start companies in Silicon Valley.

Listen on iTunes, Spotify or wherever you get podcasts.

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Monique Woodard is a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley.  She is one of the very rare Black, female General Partners in venture capital.  Previously on Something Ventured we explored Monique’s unique path to becoming a venture capitalist, and what she invests in.

As events drove the Black Lives Matter (“BLM”) movement to accelerate worldwide, Monique was gracious enough to come back and share her thoughts.

She discusses what she believes is the state of the BLM movement in general, and Silicon Valley’s dismal record on supporting Black investors and entrepreneurs in particular. She offers pure, unvarnished advice about what Silicon Valley can do – actually do – to begin fixing its problem.

Listen on iTunes, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

www.monique.vc

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Hold fast to dreams

For if dreams die

Life is a broken-winged bird

That cannot fly.

Not every podcast includes a Langston Hughes quote.  Not every venture capitalist is Somesh Dash.  Somesh is a partner at the venture capital firm IVP.  IVP is one of the largest, most established venture firms in Silicon Valley.  From his post there, Somesh has seen several cycles of Silicon Valley’s ups and downs.

In this episode, we contemplate recent events:  Racial issues converging with US 2020 presidential politics and a country on edge from Covid. Looking to the leadership of Ailene Lee and All Rise, we contemplate what more Silicon Valley might do to be supportive of black Americans.  Not just the few (too few) black VCs and Founders in Silicon Valley, but All black Americans.

We turn to the long arc of investing in Silicon Valley – from the early days of IVP, the dot com crash, the 2008 financial crisis, the last 10 years and – the great unknown that is next.  

We finish with how VCs have reacted to Covid, and what is REALLY going to happen with ‘working from home”. Finally – we end on a positive note, with the poem that begins this introduction.

On iTunes, Spotify or anywhere you get your podcasts.

IVP

Somesh Dash on Twitter

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(Note:  This episode was recorded before the Covid crisis. It includes a brief introduction with Eric Tarczynski to update the status of his fund and college investing, post Covid.)

Eric Tarczynski is the founder of Contrary, a venture capital firm focused on investing in college students starting companies.  In this episode, Eric discusses how he built a network of college entrepreneurs, and how he created a venture fund focused on investing in college students.  We discuss the unique benefits and risks of investing in young founders, many with no work experience, as well as the lessons from famous college founder – Mark Zuckerberg.  

Colleges Contrary includes in its network are:  Boston College, Boston University, BYU, Brown, Carnegie Mellon, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Duke, Emory, Georgia Tech, Harvard, NYU, Northeastern, Ohio State, Penn State, Princeton, Rice, Stanford, Texas A&M, Tufts, Berkeley, UCLA, UCSD, University of Chicago, UC Boulder, University of Illinois, University of Maryland, University of MIchigan, Notre Dame, Penn, USC, University of Texas, Virginia, Vanderbilt, University of Washington, Yale, and Waterloo.

Listen on Spotify, iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts.

Contrary Capital: www.contrarycap.com

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Raj Kapoor contracted Covid in mid-March.  He and his family are recovered and well. But Raj is taking aim at shortening the path to a post-Covid world.  He partnered with Clara Health to create www.worldwithoutcovid.org.  The site let’s people register to help researchers worldwide accelerate their race to find better testing, treatments, and vaccines.

Raj has been a venture capitalist (Mayfield) and a entrepreneur (SnapFish).  He is currently the Chief Strategy Officer at Lyft.  

In this episode we discuss Raj’s journey from contracting to recovering from Covid.  We also discuss the path to finding a treatment, and the why’s and how’s of California’s lockdown.  We also discuss (Caifornia Governor) Gavin Newsom’s “6 Criteria for lifting quarantine”, and the current state of the US Presidential race.

We turn to Lyft, and the future of transportation (the original topic of this episode):   How Lyft is faring during the Covid crisis, how will change cities, and how Lyft affect climate change.

Finally, we briefly discuss the effect Covid might ultimately have on the music industry.

Listen on iTunes, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

World Without Covid

Lyft

Clara Health

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Mike Stutz is a Hollywood producer, director and writer.  He’s worked across genres, and recently has focused on reality TV (Animal Planet, Discovery Network, etc.)

In this episode, Mike discusses the impact of COVID-19 on Hollywood:  How it affects writers, producers and even standup comics.

We also discuss: What happened when Mike decided to leave Los Angeles for Arkansas and political protest when you can’t gather.

Finally – we end on a positive note (really!) about how to address depression and suicide when everyone is isolated.

Listen on Spotify:, iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts.

Mike on Twitter:  @suicideblows

Mike on Instagram:  @resistanceclown

Mike’s Fairytale video:  https://vimeo.com/400062533

Something Ventured website:  www.somethingventured.us

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(Note this episode was recorded before the current Coronavirus crisis)

Matt Hulett is President of Rosetta Stone – one of the largest language learning companies in the world.  Long known for its striking yellow boxes of CDs (those CDs are now a thing of the past, BTW), Rosetta helps people learn almost any language from any mobile device or computer, at their own pace.

Matt came to Rosetta Stone after stints at Expedia, Atom Entertainment and RealNetworks. Where he worked for famous internet execs like Rob Glaser and Barry Diller.

In this episode we discuss Matt’s early interaction with computers (including his experiences with Telnet and Sun workstations!).  We discuss his path to becoming a public company CEO, and the difference in running turnarounds, startups and big brands.

We also discuss no less than the state of literary education in the US and how Lexia Learning helps kids learn to read.  Matt shares a few of his leadership lessons, and discusses how he keeps Rosetta stone out of the tricky politics of language into which people try to pull him.

Listen on iTunes, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

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