Paul O'Brien is currently the CEO of MediaTech Ventures, based in Austin. They are a leading venture development group at the intersection of media and technology. They also run an incubator called Collective, which Paul and team run as part of MediaTech. He’s also been Director of the Founder Institute Texas for the last few years. Paul also founded a group called Funded House a year and a half ago, which is designed to be a place where Venture Capital Firms connect directly with startups at their Series A or B rounds at conferences or online in virtual summits. Paul is a mentor and advisor to a number of other startup, venture and economic development organizations throughout the world as well.

Nearly 10 years ago, Paul and his family relocated to Austin from the Bay Area.  He had been part of early companies there like Yahoo, and ones that had built up and sold to companies like GoDaddy and Stubhub.

I’ve always appreciated Paul for his abundance mindset, willingness to share wisdom with and teach others, and his comfort with developing his own points of view.  He recently posted about building a startup team and thinking about it like building a family – some great content for our chat. We spoke a lot about startup ecosystems, what's worked in Austin and is still needed in the years ahead there.  There's a lot for us to learn from there to apply to Orange County!