While I'm a venture capitalist who invests in early-stage tech companies, I often feel like a professional emailer and conference call maker. I try to spend most of my time doing whatever the companies we are investors in need me to do.
The best thing about going to a tech conference is that you can tell everyone you're going to a tech conference. But while you're there, it's important you make a smart impression so people will remember you, or at least wait a few days before throwing away your business card.
You can invest in companies, you can help grow companies, you can be a venture capitalist - and be a philanthropist at the same time.
Nominally, I stated a company. Practically, it's a venture capital firm that allows me to be an investor in early stage companies.
As I became a venture capitalist, it's almost like I went to the dark side for a while.
Everyone in the tech business, from Kleiner Perkins venture capitalist John Doerr on down, says that the ruination of the industry, if not the entire country, will come from the inability to hire more brainiacs from countries like China and India.
We wanted Glossier to have an excellent customer experience and reach as many of you as possible from day one, so we went with venture - the stuff fast-growth, tech-enabled companies like Facebook, Amazon, and Apple are made of.
While it's true that women are the minority in most tech companies, I don't think that inhibits entry into the tech space. My motto has always been, 'Live What You Love,' and as such, I think it's incredibly important to do work you believe in and to work for a company that has values that align with your own, be it in tech or another industry.
When the venture capital industry invests, it's usually because they sense there is money in them hills. And often it takes a high-profile winner to wake everyone up in the category. SpaceX is that company.
Brand marketers don't believe that ad-tech companies view brands as true partners. Ad-tech companies think brand marketers are paying attention to the wrong things. And publishers, with a few important exceptions, feel taken advantage of by everyone.
I don't think that a mutual fund that invests exclusively in biotech start-ups or invests exclusively in companies in Thailand offers any great safety or diversification.
I think Wall Street is very important, especially to tech companies. Wall Street will get in their rhythm and go fund tech companies, and tech companies will go create jobs and employ a lot of people, so there's that aspect of Wall Street.
I really don't like conference calls to be honest. It's always something that bloody happens with a conference call - universally never works out.
I wanted to be a venture capitalist and join Sequoia Capital. They've financed and helped built some really special and enormously successful companies, including Google, Yahoo, Paypal, YouTube, Cisco, Oracle, Apple, and also Zappos.
I started to invest in very-early-stage companies where, even though I wasn't the founder, I could help shape the early strategy and culture.
Believe it or not, joining a video conference call from home doesn't always have to make you feel like an idiot.