February 23, 2021
“Anything Is Possible”: How Multiverse Apprenticeships Create New Paths to Career Success
In 2019, more than 7.2 million job openings in the U.S. could not be filled, due to the growing skills gap in the workforce. According to the World Economic Forum, closing the skills gap by 2028 could boost global GDP by $11.5 trillion...
Read moreFebruary 22, 2021
Nanit: Investing in Better Sleep for Families
As a mother of three, Nanit CEO Sarah Dorsett knows firsthand just how important it is for parents and babies to get proper sleep. "On average, parents lose 44 nights of sleep in just their first year of parenting," she says. And living through COVID-19 hasn't made sleep routines easier on families."
Read moreFebruary 17, 2021
Dandelion’s Kathy Hannun On Why Geothermal is Heating Up
As climate change has increasingly become the most pressing issue of our generation, sustainability presents the kind of opportunity we're especially excited about at GV: a problem of global magnitude, and solutions that require both creativity and engineering.
Read moreFebruary 08, 2021
Dialpad’s Craig Walker on His Entrepreneurial Journey: “Work Isn’t a Place You Go”
Eleven years ago, when I set up GV with three other general partners, we began with the thesis that we’d bet on people as much as companies. Serial entrepreneur Craig Walker was one of the first founders we backed, and we brought him into GV even before he knew exactly what kind of company he would start...
Read moreFebruary 03, 2021
The Future of Local Commerce is Nearby
When COVID-19 hit early last year, April Underwood, like all of us, watched in disbelief as small businesses in her town of San Anselmo were forced to scramble overnight and figure out how to stay alive. This trend, of course, was happening far and wide. Last fall, the WSJ reported on a study that found one in five businesses...
Read moreFebruary 02, 2021
Remote Work Is the Future: Five Highlights From Gitlab's Playbook
As remote work becomes even more ubiquitous—and with the trend likely to continue post-pandemic—companies need to rethink the way they communicate culture, values, and expectations for how teams work together. As a pioneer in remote work, GitLab has scaled to more than 1300 team members across 68 countries without opening any offices...
Read moreJanuary 28, 2021
My Once and Future Travel Buddy: Some Thoughts on GV's Investment in Gowalla
The year was 2011 and it was my first trip to London. I was there by myself. But I wasn’t alone. I had Gowalla with me. I was still a reporter at the time, and for the couple of years prior to that, the “location wars” between players like Gowalla and Foursquare had been one of my key beats...
Read moreJanuary 27, 2021
Welcoming Our Newest Advisor: Katie Dill, Former Design Lead at Airbnb and Lyft
In my previous role as head of UX for G Suite at Google, I led a team of 180 designers. I also worked on smaller and more agile product and design teams at GoPro and Walmart Labs. If there is one thing that I've learned in my 20+ years in design, there are vastly different opinions about what “design executive” actually means, and where that role fits within an organization.
Read moreJanuary 26, 2021
Vectorized's Alex Gallego and Google's Kelsey Hightower on the Language of Operational Simplicity
Before even thinking about starting a company, Vectorized CEO Alexander Gallego has had plenty of opportunities to test his resilience and grit. At just 14, he immigrated to the U.S from Manizales, Colombia. Here he reveled in opportunities to learn and grow.
Read moreJanuary 21, 2021
CoreOS Co-Founders Alex Polvi and Brandon Philips on Tackling Enormous Opportunities
One of the more fulfilling aspects of my job is connecting new founders with experienced mentors who can help them grow. CoreOS founders Alex Polvi and Brandon Philips are among the most requested open source mentors in the GV network, for good reason.
Read moreJanuary 11, 2021
EQRx: Affordable Medicine When Patients Need It Most
In the summer of 2019, I was at a board offsite for Relay Therapeutics, chatting with long-time collaborator, investor, entrepreneur, and friend Alexis Borisy. Many who know Alexis acknowledge that he is seldom wrong, and never in doubt. He looked at me with all the conviction in the world to state point-blank that he wanted to tackle drug pricing.
Read moreDecember 22, 2020
Allbirds Co-Founder Tim Brown on Building a Company for Your Grandkids
When I asked Allbirds Co-Founder Tim Brown what advice he’d give his eight-year-old self, it’s no surprise that he focused on relationships and guts. As someone audacious enough to turn the archaic footwear industry upside down, Tim spends as much time thinking about culture, legacy and community as he does about product materials and fit.
Read moreDecember 17, 2020
PostHog Founder James Hawkins on Engineering a New Approach to Product Analytics
A year ago, entrepreneur James Hawkins and technologist Tim Glaser were hard at work as part of Y Combinator's winter 2020 cohort. Their focus: help product managers and engineers collaborate.
Read moreDecember 16, 2020
Vercel Founder Guillermo Rauch on Raising Kids, Raising Capital, and Raising the Bar for Front-End Design
Vercel founder Guillermo Rauch is a passionate advocate for removing barriers to creative web development. Since back-end systems are now available off the shelf, and with innovation accelerating on the front end, developers can code, preview, and ship interactive web applications as fast as they can dream them up.
Read moreDecember 15, 2020
Bowery Farming’s Irving Fain on Food, Sustainability, and Growing the Farm of the Future
Irving Fain is equal parts optimist and critic. As the founder and CEO of the modern farming company, Bowery Farming, his excitement for the future of agriculture is contagious, and his relentless push to make food production more sustainable has led to several advances in vertical indoor farming.
Read moreDecember 11, 2020
Dr. Richard Scheller on Scientific Rigor, Genetics, and the Evolution of Drug Development
I first met Richard Scheller fifteen years ago when we worked together at Genentech. Richard’s pioneering work in drug development and oncology has touched millions of cancer patients, and I’ve learned a tremendous amount from him over the years.
Read moreDecember 10, 2020
The Shape of Metal: How Desktop Metal Took 3D Printing from Sci-Fi to Reality
Desktop Metal has shaped how metal is produced, ushering in a new era for 3D printing that brings digitized technology to manufacturing. On behalf of GV, congratulations to Ric Fulop and the entire team Desktop Metal team on taking the company public today.
Read moreDecember 08, 2020
"Absolutely Remarkable": Richard Scheller on COVID-19 Vaccine Breakthroughs
Last week I asked my longtime colleague, GV advisor Richard Scheller, for his perspective on the latest COVID-19 vaccine news. Richard has dedicated his life to developing new medicines, and as the leader of multiple R&D organizations, he pioneered oncology drugs that have helped millions of people.
Read moreDecember 01, 2020
Extra Crunch Live: MG Siegler on Remote Work and The Keys To Startup Success during COVID-19
Recently, GV General Partner (and TechCrunch alum) M.G. Siegler sat down with Darrell Etherington on TechCrunch’s Extra Crunch Live. They discussed what startup fundraising looks like eight months into the COVID-19 pandemic and the future of remote work.
Read moreNovember 25, 2020
Vaccitech Co-Founder Professor Adrian Hill on Developing a COVID-19 Vaccine
Following this week’s news that AstraZeneca, the University of Oxford, and Vaccitech have teamed up to deliver a promising vaccine for COVID-19, my colleague Vidu Shanmugarajah and I invited Vaccitech co-founder Dr. Adrian Hill to talk with our portfolio CEOs about the battle against the pandemic.
Read moreNovember 24, 2020
Sebastian Thrun on Tackling the Impossible
Sebastian Thrun is among the most prolific entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley. As a serial founder whose ventures include Google X, education trailblazer Udacity, and transportation company Kitty Hawk, he is an enormously big thinker whose natural curiosity leads him to take on seemingly impossible projects.
Read moreNovember 18, 2020
Investors Tyson Clark and Sydney Sykes on Championing Diversity in Venture Capital
As part of our new video series examining diversity across venture capital and tech, I recently invited investor and BLCK VC founder Sydney Sykes to talk about breaking into venture, the mission for BLCK VC, and the current ecosystem for Black investors. We also invited members of the BLCK VC community to submit questions.
Read moreNovember 18, 2020
Headway: A Path to Mental Health Support During a Time of Crisis
As the pandemic disrupts our lives physically, socially, emotionally, and financially, many of us will experience a subclinical mental health struggle with anxiety, mood issues, family and relationships.
Read moreNovember 17, 2020
How a U.S. Marine Built HOVER to Recreate Homes in 3D
Before jumping into the technology industry over a decade ago, I spent six years in the United States Navy. I served on submarines as both a nuclear propulsion officer and scuba diver, roles which taught me the value of character and the meaning of true grit.
Read moreNovember 12, 2020
The Future of Education: Swing Education’s Mike Teng on COVID-19, Schools, and Social Equity in Distanced Learning
As schools grapple with questions about how and when to reopen amid the COVID pandemic, I asked Swing Education Co-founder and CEO Mike Teng for his perspective on the future of K-12 education.
Read moreOctober 29, 2020
Gitlab CEO Sid Sijbrandij Shares His Blueprint for the Future of Work
Sid Sijbrandij is a visionary leader. As Co-founder & CEO of GitLab, he forged a new way of operating by scaling the company to more than a thousand team members, all working remotely.
Read moreOctober 27, 2020
A Bet on Betty Labs and the Future of Sports Audio
Today, Howard and Betty Labs team announced $9.3M in seed funding led by GV and officially launched Locker Room. This is Betty Labs’ vision for talking about the sports we love in the digital era.
Read moreOctober 23, 2020
Exploring Diversity and Anti-Racism in the Workplace with Dr. Jonathan Ashong-Lamptey
Last week, UK-based diversity expert Dr. Jonathan Ashong-Lamptey and I hosted our European portfolio companies in a wide-ranging conversation on inequality and race.
Read moreOctober 14, 2020
GV’s Newest Investing Partner: Terri Burns
If you've spent much time around our GV team in the past few years, you probably already know Terri Burns, a bright star with seemingly boundless energy for our day-to-day work.
Read moreOctober 13, 2020
Reducing Medical Coding Complexity with Nym Health
Nym speaks the language of healthcare in a way that medical providers and computer scientists both understand. At GV, we talk about finding companies that bridge the divide between breakthrough technology and healthcare.
Read moreOctober 12, 2020
Segment and Twilio: The Future of Customer Engagement
This morning, Segment announced its intent to join Twilio, another company highlighting the massive enterprise shift toward API-driven value.
Read moreOctober 09, 2020
How to Ace Remote Schooling: Swing Education’s Mike Teng on Creating Learning Pods
As the U.S. adjusts to the dynamics of remote schooling, GV asked Swing Education co-founder and CEO Mike Teng for tips on creating positive homeschool environments that work for kids and their families.
Read moreOctober 01, 2020
Pixie Labs: Emerging from Stealth to Make The Hard Things Easy for Developers
Pixie Labs launches today to give developers a powerful toolset to monitor the performance of applications running on Kubernetes.
Read moreOctober 01, 2020
Tend: The Move to Modern Dentistry
Today, Tend announces its $37 million Series B led by GV. This is the first bet we’ve made on the dental industry. At GV, we like to invest at intersections that combine disparate fields of study and propel new ways of thinking.
Read moreSeptember 28, 2020
HAGS: A Lesson in How to Build for Gen-Z
Earlier this summer, high school students around the country realized that there was one small but essential graduation moment they would miss during the pandemic: signing yearbooks in-person.
Read moreSeptember 08, 2020
Four Steps to Develop A Race-Conscious Diversity and Inclusion Strategy
GV’s diversity and inclusion partner, Candice Morgan, explains the four steps companies must take to build a race-conscious equity strategy.
Read moreAugust 25, 2020
Lessons in Entrepreneurship from Stanford University's Chris Ré
Chris is the kind of entrepreneur we love at GV. He's inherently curious with a passion for learning; he prioritizes what matters and has the self-confidence to stay focused.
Read moreAugust 03, 2020
A Conversation on The State of Mental Health in 2020
GV Venture Partner Ben Robbins hosted a panel last week on mental health and examined ways to cope with quarantine-related anxiety, family issues, the variety of losses many of us are experiencing, burnout, and social isolation.
Read moreJuly 22, 2020
Encoded Therapeutics and the Drive to End Pediatric Epilepsy
If they succeed, their approach to gene therapy will not only rescue families with Dravet Syndrome, but may lead to solving other pediatric genetic diseases.
Read moreJuly 16, 2020
Relay Therapeutics: The 100-Year Race towards Better Drug Discovery
Relay's technology can visualize and target moving proteins in the human body. By identifying and simulating the underlying proteins that cause disease, Relay can design better drugs to treat cancer and other devastating genetic diseases.
Read moreJuly 14, 2020
Diving Deeper into Machine Learning with Snorkel AI
Snorkel’s vision is to make it dead simple for even non-developers to build and deploy ML applications in a fraction of the time. It’s an exciting prospect with significant implications for how we can dive even more deeply into machine learning for decades to come.
Read moreJuly 08, 2020
A Conversation with TechCrunch on Fostering Diversity and Inclusion in Tech
GV principal Terri Burns was asked for her observations on fostering diversity and inclusion in tech, and reasons for optimism. Below is a transcript of the conversation that originally appeared in TechCrunch.
Read moreJuly 02, 2020
Some Thoughts on Lemonade’s IPO
Lemonade has built on its promise to take the headache out of insurance for homeowners and renters. As a full-stack insurer, it redesigned almost all of the traditional insurance value chain to keep premiums low, and offer renters and home insurance quotes algorithmically.
Read moreMay 28, 2020
Congratulations to ThousandEyes on Joining Forces with Cisco
It has been a privilege to partner with Mohit, Ricardo, and the entire team as they built ThousandEyes to this point. Please join me in congratulating them on their continued success as a part of the Cisco family.
Read moreMay 26, 2020
Scandit Series C: Mobile Computer Vision Means Business
It takes more than just technical excellence and a compelling vision to build the next great startup; it takes dedicated people, productive co-founder relationships, and the ability to adapt to rapidly evolving business needs.
Read moreMay 19, 2020
COVID-19: Moving from Fear to Owning Our Future
This morning GV brought together a group of leaders across technology, healthcare, and public policy to discuss the impact of COVID-19 with Dr. Sue Desmond-Hellmann.
Read moreApril 27, 2020
The Road to ROME's Series A: Exploring the Human Genome to Develop Novel Therapeutics
Exploring the human genome to advance medicine is one of the most meaningful things we can do in our lifetimes to improve health.
Read moreApril 17, 2020
A Fine Line — Some Thoughts on GV’s Latest Investment in Stripe
Stripe is a business that emerges from our current turmoil stronger because they've helped support millions of other businesses in this time. And, as the world heals, helps countless businesses rebuild or get started.
Crosspost from 500ish Words.
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