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Marvin Liao

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38
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2015-10-28
most recent
2015-10-28
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1
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  1. “Six billion people on the planet, that's a big, big sort of big leap in growth in how do you sort of feed all these people. I worry about that, right? As a parent and actually hopefully as a human being, I think that's a really big thing that a lot of people are paying attention to, and that we probably should pay more attention to. And I love what egg fund is doing too. So I like these type of businesses and marketplace businesses and anything also in fintech, I think, are really interesting for me, partly of due to sort of these macro trends and also partly because I hate Wall Street. So, you know, win-win.”

    2015-10-28 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 083: 500 Startups Week: New Funds, Startup Mentoring and Dave's Masterplan with Marvin Liao, Partner @ 500 Startups · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “Yeah, and so I'm like, I'm really excited about what they're doing because I think agriculture investments at ag tech is just, it's an area a lot of people just aren't paying a lot of attention to, but it's like, if you think about the fact that, you know, if you don't have food, you kind of die, right? And especially as we move from...”

    2015-10-28 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 083: 500 Startups Week: New Funds, Startup Mentoring and Dave's Masterplan with Marvin Liao, Partner @ 500 Startups · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “I would say the one that I'm excited about is neighborly. I like fintech partly because I hate Wall Street. So I like anything that's sort of potentially disruptive of Wall Street. Neighborly, they're sort of like a marketplace for municipal bonds. And I think that team is awesome. There were batch 10 companies where batch 14 right now. So they were excited. I'm excited by them. I'm excited by, for example, another one called Ag Funder, which is like a marketplace for ag tech and sort of agriculture investments. Yeah, yeah, that's right.”

    2015-10-28 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 083: 500 Startups Week: New Funds, Startup Mentoring and Dave's Masterplan with Marvin Liao, Partner @ 500 Startups · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “That's a tough one. I mean, it's like asking sort of who's your favorite, you know, like same with books, like which one's your favorite kid, right? I say that one, that one I would have a hard time sort of like a hard time sort of answering if I'm honest Harry.”

    2015-10-28 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 083: 500 Startups Week: New Funds, Startup Mentoring and Dave's Masterplan with Marvin Liao, Partner @ 500 Startups · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “I think sort of like scaling with quality, like anybody, like any sort of like whether you're a VC firm or whether you are a startup or big company, it's just scaling like how you maintain quality. For example, we went from two accelerator programs to four accelerator programs in Silicon Valley. How do you maintain the quality level of the program, of sort of the companies coming in, also sort of how do we sort of maintain quality as we sort of hire people? I think that's a challenge in general. I think we've been lucky so far, but I think sort of there's a move from being sort of like lucky to sort of how to be systematic about this. And it's something I think about all the time. And I think the partnership thinks about all the time.”

    2015-10-28 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 083: 500 Startups Week: New Funds, Startup Mentoring and Dave's Masterplan with Marvin Liao, Partner @ 500 Startups · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “I read anything by Tim Ferris. I think just some of his stuff is really interesting. Fred Wilson's a BC Mark Suster, you know, I just read a lot in general, first round capitals. The first round review is really, really good. I read a lot in general, as you probably can judge already. So I read pretty much everything and anything. I read Fast Company, I read everything. So I'd say those are the ones that probably sort of come top of mind. Singularity Hub, they have great newsletters as well too. So I read everything.”

    2015-10-28 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 083: 500 Startups Week: New Funds, Startup Mentoring and Dave's Masterplan with Marvin Liao, Partner @ 500 Startups · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “I mean, there's another guy named Asam Azir, and I'm probably not spelling it right, but he has this newsletter of just exponential something. And it's a newsletter one. So the ones I read like James Clear, James Altisher is amazing. Yeah, James.”

    2015-10-28 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 083: 500 Startups Week: New Funds, Startup Mentoring and Dave's Masterplan with Marvin Liao, Partner @ 500 Startups · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “I mean, MA is hard in general. I think most big companies are not good at MA. I think like Cisco used to have a good reputation for doing good M&A. Boy, Facebook, I think, has done a great job. I think the last week they'll be done. But outside of that, like even Google has, you know, their track record has been mixed. So I think generally speaking, I think most M&A as R&D just for most companies doesn't work very well.”

    2015-10-28 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 083: 500 Startups Week: New Funds, Startup Mentoring and Dave's Masterplan with Marvin Liao, Partner @ 500 Startups · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “If I'm honest, I think they're probably toast. It's a 1.0 company in a 3.0 world. I just, I'm very skeptical, and this isn't anything that's Marissa, but I just think it's just, it was such a mess when I left, and I probably take some credit for that mess that it was a little bit of credit or blame more likely. I just think because they're in a tough situation and it's really hard to turn around a ship like that. So I'm I would short that one.”

    2015-10-28 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 083: 500 Startups Week: New Funds, Startup Mentoring and Dave's Masterplan with Marvin Liao, Partner @ 500 Startups · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “C-A-L-E-N-D-L-Y.co-M. And it's just a great sort of scheduling tool that I use. And I just recently got on sort of like Amy.x.ai, which is like the Amy sort of assistant. So I started using that, although I just love Cali, which is just such a great product for scheduling.”

    2015-10-28 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 083: 500 Startups Week: New Funds, Startup Mentoring and Dave's Masterplan with Marvin Liao, Partner @ 500 Startups · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “Yeah, I think I'm kind of old fashioned. I kind of write notes on paper and then take pictures. And the other tool that I love is callanly.com. As you know, I spend a lot of time booking meetings and we're still sort of a startup VC. So I don't have an assistant. Callan Lee.com is awesome. That's probably an amazing tool that I use. How do you spell that?”

    2015-10-28 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 083: 500 Startups Week: New Funds, Startup Mentoring and Dave's Masterplan with Marvin Liao, Partner @ 500 Startups · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “I think Evernote is amazing. I just think that is an amazing, amazing product, and I'm really surprised I only came to it, ran into it like three, like just, I only started using it three years ago. And no world without sort of like, without ever know, that for me is probably the biggest thing because I just take a lot of notes and it's just awesome.”

    2015-10-28 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 083: 500 Startups Week: New Funds, Startup Mentoring and Dave's Masterplan with Marvin Liao, Partner @ 500 Startups · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “That's like asking what's your favorite kid, right? I would say one of them is like the art of worldly wisdom by Baltasar Gratian, Dune by Frank Herbert, which is amazing. Any investor who doesn't like science fiction, I think should not be an investing game. And of course, Tim Ferris is for our work week. It's just a great book. The principles of it. I work way more than four hours, but I think the principles of it are very, very good.”

    2015-10-28 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 083: 500 Startups Week: New Funds, Startup Mentoring and Dave's Masterplan with Marvin Liao, Partner @ 500 Startups · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “Really hard. And I think for me, it's just like how I think about this is it's a service business. So like even if I don't invest in a company when I take a meeting, I want them to walk out of the meeting going, hey, that was helpful or interesting. And that wasn't a complete waste of my time. Like if that happens, I think that means I'm doing my job.”

    2015-10-28 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 083: 500 Startups Week: New Funds, Startup Mentoring and Dave's Masterplan with Marvin Liao, Partner @ 500 Startups · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “Realizing that sort of becoming a great investor, I think is really hard. And I think sort of the cycles of learning of just like, just I think for me, I think it's really amazing that there are arrogant VCs out there. I think that this is a business that is incredibly humbling and humbly in the sense that you're wrong most of the time, right? So if I'm honest, I feel like I'm still, I'm a complete novice in this business. And so I feel like I'm learning stuff all the time here. And so I think it's really, really hard to be a great investor to really develop the instincts, to really just have a good thesis and to just to risk being wrong most of the time, right? So I think that's been sort of a great learning. I think like just this is being a VC, I couldn't remember who said this, but I said being an investor is like, it's not a hard life, but being a great investor.”

    2015-10-28 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 083: 500 Startups Week: New Funds, Startup Mentoring and Dave's Masterplan with Marvin Liao, Partner @ 500 Startups · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “VC event that we do every year trying to take that globally, I think that education piece on the investor side and trying to sort of inject more expertise and more money locally for sort of VC investing, whether it's in Europe or Southeast Asia or even Africa or Middle East or Latin America, I think that's sort of what you should expect to see more of over the next like five years.”

    2015-10-28 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 083: 500 Startups Week: New Funds, Startup Mentoring and Dave's Masterplan with Marvin Liao, Partner @ 500 Startups · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “I think as Dave says, like world domination, right? And I think the thesis is there's a lot of smart people everywhere, right? A lot of talented people. And I think the opportunity is sort of the education of sort of what 500 brings in regards to education in the sense of like, I think there's a lot of really, really great entrepreneurs, but I think the big sort of gap in many, many markets now is really on the investor side. Like the investor education is sophistication. And so, you know, I think there's a big push from 500 startups where I think it's not so much investing 500 companies past that. And I think the goal is maybe investing in 5 million companies. But now to get to that goal is how do we also sort of like arm and train like 500 VCs to sort of fund these startups? And I think that's sort of the next sort of big push, at least from 500 startups, is, you know, we do these things called pre-money, which is basically probably the preeminent angel investing and sort of like, you know, sort of like.”

    2015-10-28 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 083: 500 Startups Week: New Funds, Startup Mentoring and Dave's Masterplan with Marvin Liao, Partner @ 500 Startups · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of it is one of the things we have this master plan and sometimes I think it's sort of opportunistic as well too. It's just where we happen to know people that we just think are awesome and they happen to sort of want to work with us or do something with us like we will we will be opportunistic. But I think it is a, you know, this is Dave's master plan from the beginning. Even when I, you know, I remember having this conversation with him, we were doing geeks on the plane in Eastern Europe back in 2012. And I remember sitting with them sort of chatting with them over sort of lunch and sort of like even back in 2012. I remember walking going like, wow, this guy's a madman. He's either madman or genius, but like just, I think the vision of sort of like where and where he wants like 500 to go is just like really exciting. So it seems to be working. I guess we'll see, right? Still early days. We've only been around for five years. And I've only been with the company a little bit less than two years now. So I can't say I sort of am an expert, but sort of watching where this company's growing in the last.”

    2015-10-28 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 083: 500 Startups Week: New Funds, Startup Mentoring and Dave's Masterplan with Marvin Liao, Partner @ 500 Startups · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “industry so um and there's a lot of really you know and i think there's a lot of like rules and regulations that are now sort of being changed because of like for example obamacare and sort of the affordable health act like there's a lot of things that are happening here and a lot of interesting sort of innovations happening in the space so um i find this space like fascinating and i'm starting to make a lot more investments here”

    2015-10-28 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 083: 500 Startups Week: New Funds, Startup Mentoring and Dave's Masterplan with Marvin Liao, Partner @ 500 Startups · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “You know, I'm super excited in the AI space. I still think enterprise SaaS there's still a lot of really interesting things happening in enterprise SaaS, marketplaces, you know, really the unbundling of a lot of industries and frankly sort of corporations, like marketplaces, like, you know, I'll give you an example. I made investment in Congo Skillbridge, which is unbundling basically the management consulting industry. Another copy Doe was invested last year, which is sort of going after ad agency, marketing agency business, that part's super interesting. I'm also investing health. I probably made about seven or eight digital health investments in the last probably six months now. That space is, you know, just like it's huge, right? It's really a trillion dollar industry alone here in the US, the macro trends of people getting older, baby boomers getting older. I'm getting older. So frankly, this is probably more selfish than anything else.”

    2015-10-28 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 083: 500 Startups Week: New Funds, Startup Mentoring and Dave's Masterplan with Marvin Liao, Partner @ 500 Startups · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “I think it depends. So I'll give the example. Like if it's things like in fintech, even I might even look at companies sort of in the pre-launch phase because FinTech, there's a lot more rules and regulations that they need to sort of clear versus say if you're like a consumer mobile app, I definitely want to see a lot more traction or if you're like, you know, so for example, like, you know, that old saying is like, you know, or the new saying now is like, you know, 10 million downloads is a new 1 million downloads, right? As an example versus like SaaS, like I'm looking like enterprise SaaS companies. I won't look at a pre-launch sort of like enterprise SaaS company. I want to see something in the range of 10 to sometimes $50,000 a month in recurring revenue because like these are just super competitive spaces, right? You know, we're very well established sort of industry. So a lot of it really depends, right? I think in some industries that are really crowded, I look for attraction in industries that tend to be either newer, like digital media.”

    2015-10-28 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 083: 500 Startups Week: New Funds, Startup Mentoring and Dave's Masterplan with Marvin Liao, Partner @ 500 Startups · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “No, we have board observer rights, but we don't take board seats. Just number one, we just can't provide the sort of attention that I think sort of like a startup really deserves. And in this early stage, like, frankly speaking, I think you'd be kind of stupid to have a board at a company like this early, at least a stage that we're investing in.”

    2015-10-28 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 083: 500 Startups Week: New Funds, Startup Mentoring and Dave's Masterplan with Marvin Liao, Partner @ 500 Startups · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “It ranges between 50,000 to about $100,000. So there's a range. But I would say right now, before, probably about two years ago, probably average about 50K a check. We're probably doing about 75 to about 100K check sizes now.”

    2015-10-28 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 083: 500 Startups Week: New Funds, Startup Mentoring and Dave's Masterplan with Marvin Liao, Partner @ 500 Startups · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  24. “Investing in any company that comes our way. At least I don't think most of the partnership is doing that. And I definitely am not.”

    2015-10-28 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 083: 500 Startups Week: New Funds, Startup Mentoring and Dave's Masterplan with Marvin Liao, Partner @ 500 Startups · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  25. “Yeah, I mean, so slightly different between the accelerator and the seed fund, but the reality is just that we get accused of sort of spray and prey. And I actually think it's not really true because I look at anywhere between like a dozen to maybe like 30 companies a week, either for the accelerator or for the seed fund. But for the accelerator, for example, the numbers, I mean, for batch 30, you know, for batch 14, which is in process. And I run the San Francisco base accelerator as well, besides being a partner for the investment partner for the fund. We looked at over close to 1100 companies to get down to 36 companies. So, you know, we're fairly selective on accelerator side for the C fund side. Like I'm talking anywhere between 12 to 30 companies a week, and I might make like one, maybe two investments. I'd say it's probably an averaging about one investment probably every two weeks. So, you know, we're still fairly selective. I don't think we're randomly selected.”

    2015-10-28 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 083: 500 Startups Week: New Funds, Startup Mentoring and Dave's Masterplan with Marvin Liao, Partner @ 500 Startups · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  26. “1200, I think, to be exact and our sort of main fund and some of the micro funds, yes, probably about 1,200. I think it's a little bit over 1,200 now.”

    2015-10-28 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 083: 500 Startups Week: New Funds, Startup Mentoring and Dave's Masterplan with Marvin Liao, Partner @ 500 Startups · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  27. “Return for equity. I think these things sort of need to happen organically, where I think if you have initial meeting, it's whether you're looking at investors or looking for mentors or advisors or whatever. I think the best relationships kind of happen organically. So like dating, right? You know, you meet a bunch of people and then just kind of if there's chemistry, awesome, right? But like I think you sort of need to sort of go into these things sort of like eyes wide open and sometimes just not expecting anything. the best stuff happens when that happens like serendipity is a really really valuable thing”

    2015-10-28 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 083: 500 Startups Week: New Funds, Startup Mentoring and Dave's Masterplan with Marvin Liao, Partner @ 500 Startups · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  28. “So for me, it's just like people who don't need to do this. I worry about sort of like mentors who do this as their job where they're like advising sort of startups as like their main sort of like income. I do sort of worry about that where I kind of like you do it because it's fun and if something comes out of it great, but you shouldn't be going into sort of any relationship sort of expecting something. I guess that's how I think about it.”

    2015-10-28 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 083: 500 Startups Week: New Funds, Startup Mentoring and Dave's Masterplan with Marvin Liao, Partner @ 500 Startups · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  29. “So it's like your first two to three meetings, your first two to three introductions are free. But sort of if they want more than that, there needs to be some type of sort of, I guess, compensation is not the right way to say it, but like I think like as a mentor, you should be just coming in sort of like trying to like really with the view of sort of just trying to help. But of course with that rule, it prevents you from sort of being taken in advantage as well too, right? So I think it's a balanced.”

    2015-10-28 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 083: 500 Startups Week: New Funds, Startup Mentoring and Dave's Masterplan with Marvin Liao, Partner @ 500 Startups · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  30. “Yeah, I think there's a lot of predators out there now. And my perspective, anyone who approaches you for there's nothing for free, right? And so I think I rustle with that as well too, even as a mentor where it's just like there's this role in Silicon Valley called the rule of two to three. Have you heard of this one before?”

    2015-10-28 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 083: 500 Startups Week: New Funds, Startup Mentoring and Dave's Masterplan with Marvin Liao, Partner @ 500 Startups · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  31. “Yeah, I mean, that's a great question. And number one, I think I come from an operator, but really sort of a really sales and marketing focused background.”

    2015-10-28 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 083: 500 Startups Week: New Funds, Startup Mentoring and Dave's Masterplan with Marvin Liao, Partner @ 500 Startups · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  32. “I mean, it seems to be that direction. I mean, like, you know, first round capital was an innovator in this, you know, even 500 starters. We have almost close to like 80, 90 staff. And we have a team of about almost 14 distribution sort of like distribution in our terminology. It's like sort of online marketing, sales experts who help our companies and accelerator and sort of in the portfolio. I mean, this is a massive investment. So, you know, I would say there's a traditional VC, like the benchmark and the Excels or the, you know, you go down the list of the Mayfields and Greylocks, like the traditional sort of VC, like that model works really well, right? But there's also sort of the new model, which is sort of these add-on services. I think we're in a world where both these can exist and both of them sort of bring new stuff to the table or bring good stuff to the table. So I don't think there's, you know, I don't know if I've seen more of a trend in this direction, but I don't know if this.”

    2015-10-28 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 083: 500 Startups Week: New Funds, Startup Mentoring and Dave's Masterplan with Marvin Liao, Partner @ 500 Startups · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  33. “Yeah, I think it's helpful. I mean, I think if you see the big change in Silicon Valley, you're seeing sort of like operator as VC, right? So many VCs now, the most prominent being Mark Andreessen Ben Horowitz of Andreesen Horowitz, like many of these new sort of up-and-coming sort of like venture capitalist Mark Suster, many of these people are basically used to be entrepreneurs or used to be operators. And I think it's helpful, and frankly, the mentoring is incredibly fun because you're learning stuff too in the beginning. I thought of just kind of doing 500 a favor and I realized I learned just as much probably more than I was sort of able to sort of get back, I think. At least that's how I felt, which is why I did it so much.”

    2015-10-28 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 083: 500 Startups Week: New Funds, Startup Mentoring and Dave's Masterplan with Marvin Liao, Partner @ 500 Startups · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  34. “Being part of something that's growing, it's just really an unbelievable sort of like career sort of experience, to be honest. So I felt very honored.”

    2015-10-28 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 083: 500 Startups Week: New Funds, Startup Mentoring and Dave's Masterplan with Marvin Liao, Partner @ 500 Startups · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  35. “You know, when I joined, we were probably about 3,000 people. So, watching sort of this company scale to, I think it's about 15,000 people when I left. I mean, just fascinating, right? Like watching a company go through high growth. And of course, like the growing pains that comes along with it. But of course, just to be honest, all the amazing people that I worked with who are now all over the industry, right? Some of them are VCs, some of them run very, very large organizations, you know, someone who one of my good mentors, he's a VC now in India, another boss of my boss, who's also a very good mentor, gotting Greg Coleman, is now sort of running BuzzFeed, right? He's like CEO and president BuzzFeed. So kind of, you know, like almost everywhere in the industry, like there's an ex-Yahoo person. So the alumni has been fantastic. And this is all over the world. So it's been, you know, there was a lot of changes. And I think sort of just watching and learning from just being.”

    2015-10-28 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 083: 500 Startups Week: New Funds, Startup Mentoring and Dave's Masterplan with Marvin Liao, Partner @ 500 Startups · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  36. “As an angel investor, I'll be frank. I was a horrible angel investor, so I've kind of, my wife is still kind of pissed off at me for all the money that I lost. But it actually was a great way to learn the investing game, especially all those lessons stick in my head.”

    2015-10-28 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 083: 500 Startups Week: New Funds, Startup Mentoring and Dave's Masterplan with Marvin Liao, Partner @ 500 Startups · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  37. “When I left Yahoo in 2012, beginning of 2012, I was lucky to have some sort of, I would say, some bank. And so I ended up just sort of doing angel investing, joined a bunch of boards advisory boards, speaking at conferences. And really, if I'm very honest, I just kind of goofing around and doing some angel investing and mentoring. And one of the sort of places I was mentoring, I was probably mentoring about 15 or 16 different startup accelerators across the globe. And one of them was 500 startups here. So I got to know them very, very well. And I guess he felt guilty for all the time I put in there mentoring because the mentor at 500 is like you're a volunteer. And so I was spending almost close to, I think, like almost 10 to 15 hours a week over there because this is fun. And they felt guilty and I guess they gave me a job when they opened up the San Francisco office.”

    2015-10-28 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 083: 500 Startups Week: New Funds, Startup Mentoring and Dave's Masterplan with Marvin Liao, Partner @ 500 Startups · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  38. “So in the technology game, I've been in Silicon Valley pretty much since'99, so moved here January 3rd in 1999, you know, here like everybody for the first-com boom because I thought I was going to get rich didn't quite work out But I spent two years at an e-commerce startup raise quite a lot of money I was an early employee ran there online marketing as probably everybody did I got laid off in 2001 and then like everyone else scrambling for work and then ended up at Yahoo in 2001 sort of in the sort of the downturn. So 2001 Silicon Valley was kind of horrible and so I wasn't sure how long it's going to be staying in the tech industry if I'm honest and then I ended up spending a good 10 and a half year run at Yahoo which was great so had a had a great time over there and then”

    2015-10-28 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 083: 500 Startups Week: New Funds, Startup Mentoring and Dave's Masterplan with Marvin Liao, Partner @ 500 Startups · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source