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Up Early

I’ve always been a natural early riser. Even as a child, I would put myself to bed at sunset and rise at dawn. My parents tried to make this a feature rather than a bug by teaching me to turn on the coffee maker. That didn’t really work out, as the coffee would be all…

Acknowledging the grace of this life

I’ve had two of my good friends lose a parent in the last month. One lost a mother unexpectedly to complications of the flu. The other lost his dad today, after a more than 3-year battle with cancer. His note to me was beautiful.  I pretty much tear up every time I read it. “RIP…

A Ridiculous Day at Foundry Group

It was one of the most frequently asked questions when we announced me joining Foundry Group. It usually came in the form of a question but was sometimes a statement.   “Are you going to be in one of those videos?” or “You know, they are definitely going to make you be in a video!”…

BREAK THE INTERNET TO SAVE NET NEUTRALITY

We have just hours. The FCC is about to vote to end net neutrality—breaking the fundamental principle of the open Internet—and only an avalanche of calls to Congress can stop it. So we decided to help “Break the Internet” on our sites. You can also support on Twitter, Tumblr, Youtube or in whatever wild creative way you can to get your audience to contact…

Home

We’ve spent the last two nights in Fort Worth, Texas.  We stay with my mother when we’re down here, very near the neighborhood where I grew up. We come down to Fort Worth about once a year as we normally visit our lake house a few hours away to see my family. I left Fort…

Window Shopping

I’ve got bad news for aspiring fund managers. Fundraising is only getting harder. I spend a fair amount of time each week connecting with LPs. We may see each other at events and annual meetings, or just set up calls to check in on pipelines and prospects. I’m often trying to get the other LP…

Saying “No” too often is part of being a good investor

  One of my favorite comments about our Partner Fund portfolio came from a well-known VC at a high-flying fund. She noted that we get to work with “all the good people in venture.” I suppose people are the price of admission for our family. However, we can’t invest in “ALL the good people in…

Mi Casa Es Su Casa – How we seek to interact with our family of GPs

As we share more about our fund investment thesis on the Foundry Group blog, I also wanted to give more transparency for how we interact with our GPs and how we aspire to help them. I’ve shared the text below from an email that we sent out earlier this year. I hope this provides a window into the form…

Venture Risk and Return circa 2017

I put the below note in an email to a friend a few weeks back and I find it’s something I’ve been thinking about and saying over the last year. I figure I might as well be on the record for it! VC formation is only following and responding to company formation. There has been…

Upfront 2017

I’m just getting going for Day 3 of Upfront hospitality here in Los Angeles. Upfront puts together their summit for the benefit of their LPs, entrepreneurs, and broader ecosystem. They do a hell of a job. It’s become a must-attend event for LPs and GPs alike. That’s saying something. You don’t get this many busy…