His openness to the possibility that life may not always happen the way he planned enabled Oshri Kaplan to become a successful student and venture capitalist. While he was still undecided on which career path to pursue, Oshri seized the opportunity to grow in various fields, including the military, law, and business, where he gained a network of corporate leaders and entered the venture capital industry.

Oshri started his career as an analyst in his homeland, Israel, before moving to Silicon Valley— the Mecca of VCs and startups, to continue providing value as a venture capitalist. He is MBA 2013 at Berkeley Haas and a seasoned investor who later joined Munich Re Ventures as an Investment Director. 

Learn about the challenges of finding investment opportunities, the day-to-day activities of a venture capitalist, and which class at Haas helped Oshri advance in his entrepreneurial career.

Episode Quotes:

Which class at Haas influenced you the most?

[00:08:36] The most influential course I took at Haas was negotiations with Holly Schroth. I'm negotiating now every day. My job is essentially to negotiate. So with that, I don't think about any other course that I would rather take a test than the negotiation. That was eye-opening because, as an Israeli, they're teaching you tactics around negotiation, which I found very different from the tactics taught in US-based schools and definitely at Haas. That was super refreshing, and it was hard. It was hard, and it was challenging at the beginning to find myself in situations where I needed to adapt. I need to figure out a different way to approach things if I want to be successful. That's one of the classes that I've been using since then.

What does a venture capitalist’s day-to-day operation look like?

[00:16:56] In general, an investor needs to divide his time between looking and listening for new opportunities; depending on what exactly is your role, whether you are in one of those funds or principal and later, director or general partner, you need to manage your time. 

His advice to fellow Haasies or other students who want to have a successful career.

[00:24:39] I think people need to be vulnerable. They need to open themselves to the ideas of what they are going to see and learn and be open-minded about networking and the people that they're going to meet during those couple of years or three or four years at school, as those are the years that you don't really know who you're going to meet. You don't know where the next opportunity will come and how you're going to meet your next employer or a reference to a new employer. I always had a plan in my mind, and I needed to follow it, but the reality is that nothing really went according to the plan, but it was parallel, and I was open enough to expose myself to other options.  

Show Links:

• Oshri Kaplan on LinkedIn
• Oshri Kaplan on Twitter

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