VC Cafe

SEPTEMBER 26, 2022

The past year was a wild ride for startups and founders, giving a whole new meaning to the ”rollercoaster” aspect of being an entrepreneur. Patrick Collison , self-made billionaire founder of Stripe. Bill Gates , founder of Microsoft. Choosing a co-founder, and hiring the early employees is key to building a successful company.

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David Teten

MARCH 5, 2021

(co-written with Katherine Boe Heuck , a MBA candidate at MIT Sloan (class of 2022); past intern at Versatile VC ; and a current intern at Metaprop NYC.). We reviewed CB Insights’ global list of “40 of the Best VC Bets of all Time.” All of the 40 companies’ 92 founders were male. Of the 43 U.S.-based

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thebarefootvc

FEBRUARY 19, 2014

I overviewed demographic and economic trends globally and outlined the opportunity for technology companies to access growth in the emerging markets. Jan Koum, one of WhatsApp’s founders, immigrated to the US from Communist Ukraine as a teenager. He worked at Yahoo, where he met his co-founder.

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VC Cafe

MARCH 4, 2024

All of this is in addition to the macro challenges that Israeli startups had to deal with in 2023 even before October 7th, including international investor unease due to the proposed judicial reform (that has since been taken off the table), Ukraine war, global venture slowdown ( US VC investments were down 60% in 2023 ), etc.

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Hearpreneur

SEPTEMBER 9, 2022

Airbnb founders Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia had difficulty securing funding, so they launched a mini project to build some funds and catch investors' attention. Using this capital , the founders launched and enjoyed exponential growth in their first year, with 10K users and thousands of listings. Photo Credit: Jack Underwood.

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ReadWriteStart

SEPTEMBER 8, 2020

Although it’s tempting to blame it all on the coronavirus situation and its formidable ripples, the pandemic only accelerated the processes of globalization and digitization that have been underway for decades. Still, COVID-19 helped tip the balance towards a globally distributed model. The world of work is transforming.

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A Crowded Space

OCTOBER 3, 2018

Very shortly after I joined, Greg Gretsch (now my partner at Jackson Square Ventures) co-led oDesk’s Series A along with Venky Ganesan (partner at Menlo Ventures and lead investor in Rev.com). Upwork has built a global meritocracy, providing access to high-quality jobs and earning potential for the right people, anywhere in the world.

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