My firstminute

My firstminute is a series of informal talks with global leaders sharing stories about the earliest days of their career, how they overcame some of their toughest challenges, and how they now enjoy supporting the next generation.

A very special edition of My firstminute with a sparkling double act: Sequoia investor extraordinaire, Roelof Botha, known for his investments into Instagram, YouTube, MongoDB, Unity, Eventbrite, Square, 23andMe, Bird, Evernote, BridgeBio and many more; alongside Grammy Award-winning musician, producer, and two-time entrepreneur, Ben Lovett.

My firstminute is a series of informal talks with global leaders sharing stories about the earliest days of their career, how they overcame some of their toughest challenges, and how they now enjoy supporting the next generation.

On Tuesday 14th July 2020, we hosted a special edition of “my firstminute” with Pam Kostka (CEO of All Raise) in conversation with Julia Collins (Co-founder & CEO of Planet FWD, Co-founder of Zume Pizza).

Pam is the CEO of All Raise whose mission is to amplify female voices, accelerate their success, and create a tech culture where women are leading, shaping, and funding the future.

Joining Pam is Julia is the founder of Planet FWD, the regenerative food company focussed on reversing global warming through sustainable food production. Previously, Julia co-founded Zume Pizza, helping the SoftBank-backed robotics company raise $423 million before she stepped down in 2018.

During the session, they covered everything from their experiences of founding, funding and building VC-backed startups as well as discussing the importance of what needs to happen now to meaningfully increase diversity in the founder-funder ecosystem.

Both of our guests are exceptional leaders with a passion for diversity and inclusion in the tech / VC space, making for an insightful and inspiring conversation!

My firstminute is a series of informal talks with global leaders sharing stories about the earliest days of their career, how they overcame some of their toughest challenges, and how they now enjoy supporting the next generation.

On Tuesday 3rd June 2020, we hosted investor extraordinaire Peter Fenton.

Peter became a General Partner at Benchmark a little more than a decade ago after graduating from Stanford, part of the famous class of 1994 (which included the likes of Brian Acton, the founder of WhatsApp, and David Sacks, the C.E.O. of Zenefits). Peter was an early investor in Twitter, back when it had 25 employees and sat on the board until 2017.

Peter's current investments include EngineYard, Lithium, New Relic, Pentaho, Polyvore, Terracotta, Yelp and Zendesk. He also sits on a number of boards including Yelp, Docker, Zuora and many more.

My firstminute is a series of informal talks with global leaders sharing stories about the earliest days of their career, how they overcame some of their toughest challenges, and how they now enjoy supporting the next generation.

On Friday 5th June 2020, Steve Crossan, Venture Partner at firstminute capital, hosted Jess Lee, Partner at Sequoia Capital and former CEO at Polyvore.

Over her illustrious career, Jess has spent time working as Product Manager at Google, as CEO at Polyvore, and most recently as Partner at Sequoia Capital, where she became the youngest partner as well as the firm's first female Partner in the United States. Steve spent time exploring the many aspects of Jess' journey, her focus on consumer and community, and her outlook for the future of venture and startups.

My firstminute is a series of informal talks with global leaders sharing stories about the earliest days of their career, how they overcame some of their toughest challenges, and how they now enjoy supporting the next generation.

On Friday 29th May 2020, Camilla Mazzolini, Investor at firstminute capital, hosted a special edition of “my firstminute” with Rio Ferdinand (Former England and Manchester United Captain) in conversation with Michael Acton Smith OBE (Co-founder & CEO of Calm).

This episode's discussion ranged in focus, starting with Rio's journey from West Ham's youth team to playing professionally for Manchester United and as part of England's World Cup squads, leading on to his life and career post-football and his current interest in technology and investment. This was complimented by the exploration of Michael Acton Smith's journey in Founding Firebox.com, Mind Candy and most recently Calm ($1bn private valuation). Two exceptional leaders with a passion for health and technology, making for an insightful and inspiring conversation!

My firstminute is a series of informal talks with global leaders sharing stories about the earliest days of their career, how they overcame some of their toughest challenges, and how they now enjoy supporting the next generation.

On Monday 4th May 2020, we hosted a special My firstminute session with David Helgason and Bing Gordon.

We covered everything from the earliest days of their careers, as founder and CEO of Unity Technologies for David and Chief Creative Officer at EA for Bing, to how they now enjoy helping and backing founders. David is a founding Partner at Nordics Makers, a group of ten top Nordic angels, and also has his private vehicle, Foobar.vc. As for Bing, he joined Kleiner Perkins in 2008 and serves as Chief Product Officer for the firm. He also leads Kleiner Perkins' sFund, the investment initiative to fund and build applications and services that deliver on the promise of the social web.

David Helgason's bio:

I'm a technologist, founder of a wonderful technology company, non-exec director to others, and a restless entrepreneur with a passion for creating feedback loops between innovation and teams and products, applying new and old business models to changing industries, and pushing people to do the very best they can do.

My background is in programming, an assortment of university dabbling, creating companies, and helping entrepreneurs. I served as CEO of Unity Technologies since co-founding it in 2003 and until October 2014, with an unflinching vision to democratize game development, and to develop technology and business models for the next phase of the games industry. We've done well thus far.

Bing Gordon's bio:

Bing Gordon joined Kleiner Perkins in 2008 and serves as Chief Product Officer for the firm.

Bing also leads Kleiner Perkins' sFund, the investment initiative to fund and build applications and services that deliver on the promise of the social web.

The sFund, launched in 2010 with strategic partners Amazon.com, Facebook, Zynga, Comcast, Liberty Media and Allen & Co., has made 16 investments to date, including four seeds. Bing serves on the board of directors of Amazon, N3twork, Zazzle and Zynga.

He was also a founding director at Katango (acquired by Google 2011), ngmoco (acquired by DeNA 2010) and Audible (acquired by Amazon in 2008). Before joining Kleiner Perkins, Bing had been a long-time executive at Electronic Arts, beginning with EA’s founding in 1982 with initial funding from Kleiner Perkins.

He was chief creative officer at EA from 1998 to 2008 and previously headed EA marketing and product development. Bing drove EA’s branding strategy with EA Sports, developed EA’s pricing strategy for package goods and online games, created EA’s studio organization, and contributed to the design and marketing of many EA franchises, including John Madden Football, The Sims, Sim City, Need for Speed, Tiger Woods Golf, Club Pogo and Command and Conquer.

Bing was awarded the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences' Lifetime Achievement Award in 2011, and he held the game industry's first endowed chair in game design at The University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts.

He earned an M.B.A. from Stanford University and his B.A. degree from Yale University, where he serves on the President’s Council.

Bing's favorite games of all time are World of Warcraft, the Sims, Diablo, Pogo, Civilization, Columns, Freecell, Farmville and Cityville.

My firstminute is a series of informal talks with global leaders sharing stories about the earliest days of their career, how they overcame some of their toughest challenges, and how they now enjoy supporting the next generation.

On Tuesday 2nd June 2020, Spencer Crawley, Co-founder and General Partner at firstminute capital, hosted Jeff Immelt for a new edition of myfirstminute.

Jeff Immelt is the former Chairman and CEO of General Electric, which he stepped down from in 2017 after 16 years. Jeff was the 9th Chairman of GE, and has been named one of the "World's Best CEOs" three times by Barron's, and GE has been named "America's Most Admired Company" by Fortune magazine and one of "The World's Most Respected Companies" in polls by Barron's and Financial Times.

He now serves as a Venture Partner with our friends at NEA, sitting on the boards of several healthcare companies.

Spencer spoke with Jeff about the earliest days of his career, his leadership lessons from running a company of General Electric's magnitude, and his views on healthcare, the pandemic and US/China relations. Spencer also explored the challenges that Jeff faced as a leader, and how he now supports the next generation of entrepreneurs, operators and investors.

My firstminute is a series of informal talks with global leaders sharing stories about the earliest days of their career, how they overcame some of their toughest challenges, and how they now enjoy supporting the next generation.

On Thursday 16th April 2020, we hosted Ross Mason (MuleSoft Co-founder, Dig Ventures Managing Partner) and covered everything from scaling MuleSoft in a recession through to being bought by Salesforce for $6.5bn, to how we use the Coronavirus to come out stronger, to how to go about fundraising in times like this, to how to knowing who is essential in your team, to how do Enterprise SaaS customers respond to a crisis like this.

My firstminute is a series of informal talks with global leaders sharing stories about the earliest days of their career, how they overcame some of their toughest challenges, and how they now enjoy supporting the next generation.

On Thursday 30th April 2020, Lina Wenner, Principal at firstminute capital, hosted Riccardo Zacconi, Co-founder of King and Sweet Capital, and delved into Riccardo's depth of experience in running King during a major financial downturn, and explored how he now enjoys helping and backing founders.

Riccardo Zacconi's biography:

Riccardo was a co-founder of King and continues to serve as company Chairman, having served as CEO from 2003 until 2019.

Riccardo grew up in Italy, worked in management consulting at LEK and BCG before transitioning into tech at the start of the dotcom boom. In 1999, Riccardo joined Swedish online startup Spray to build its business in Germany. After the sale of Spray to Lycos Europe he moved to the UK as an Entrepreneur in Residence for Benchmark Capital. In 2002 Riccardo joined uk online dating startup uDate as VP of European sales and marketing. After the sale of uDate to IAC/Match.com, Riccardo co-founded King in March 2003 and was its CEO from the start, overseeing the company's rapid growth in the global mobile gaming sector to over 500 million monthly players, the company's IPO on NYSE and its $6bn sale to Activision Blizzard in 2016.

In December 2016 Riccardo was knighted by the Italian President with the title of Commendatore dell'Ordine della Stella d'Italia. Riccardo is also the founder of the PTEN Research Foundation for rare genetic diseases.

My firstminute is a series of informal talks with global leaders sharing stories about the earliest days of their career, how they overcame some of their toughest challenges, and how they now enjoy supporting the next generation.

On Friday 26th June 2020, Clara Lindh Bergendorff hosted Niraj Shah, Co-founder, Co-Chairman & CEO of Wayfair.

Wayfair has been one of the global success stories of 2020, with its share price rocketing from $27 to $211 since March, and a market cap now exceeding $20bn.

Niraj co-founded the company with Steve Conine back in 2002 and the pair rapidly grew the business to become one of the largest online destinations for home furnishings, housewares, home improvement goods and more, generating $9.5 billion in net revenue for the twelve months ended March 31, 2020.

During the session, Clara explored the many aspects of Niraj's journey as well as his outlook on the future of commerce, contrarian ideas, COVID tailwinds, how to make marketplace economics work while serving a less than affluent demographic, e-com defensibility and the role of private label brands, and finally, why a US company should or shouldn’t expand internationally.