How do you view your role with portfolio companies?

To hustle and to identify the forest through the trees.

What’s one piece of advice you tell your portfolio companies when it comes to hiring?

Two things: The best talent is worth the comp. In this market, there is a tricky balance between hiring “good enough” now and “perfect” when you find them. Hiring the best is always the goal, but recently I’ve seen entrepreneurs over-index on looking for perfect.

What defines an interesting market?

Those hidden in plain sight.

Favorite quote or saying?

My memory of learning a spot, of coming to know and understand a wave, is usually inseparable from a friend with whom I tried to climb its walls.
- William Finnegan, Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life

First concert you went to / band you saw live?

Stone Temple Pilots.

Favorite thing about San Francisco?

The fog horns of the bay on a foggy day are the highest form of music to me.

What is your favorite hobby/outside of venture, how do you spend your time?

Being miles away from any trace of civilization on a dirt trail with my family.

Why did you choose to be a venture capitalist?

I love deconstructing complex business models, and seeing value where others do not.

What is your favorite book / who is your favorite author?

Undaunted Courage, the story of the Lewis and Clark Expedition by Stephen Ambrose.

What job would you be doing if you were not a VC?

Emergency Room Doctor.