Venture Vignettes

How can technology solve world problems? In this episode, Riana speaks with Radhika Shah of Stanford Angels & Entrepreneurs about how her background lead her to the exciting world of tech innovation. Hear about interesting tech ventures being put into use to combat social, environmental, and health issues around the world!

In this episode Riana Shah sits down with CEO and co-founder of BrightCrowd, T.J. Duane, to talk about his work and the importance of networking platforms. T.J. is an expert networker and has brought that ability to people through this site BrightCrowd. In this episode we talk about the ways in which people can build an effective network to bring them to the next level.

Duane did his undergrad at Cornell, attended Harvard Law School, and most recently attended Stanford Business School.

In this episode, Riana speaks with Tracy Chadwell and Alison Andrews Reyes, co-founders at 1843 Capital. Tracy is an attorney with 19 years of experience in venture capital and private equity and she previously worked as partner at Baker Capital, with $1 billion under management. Alison is a start-up founder and executive with over 20 years of experience, and she was recently founder of Dezignable.com, a B2B technology-enabled service for commercial and residential design. At 1843 Capital, Tracy and Alison make Series A & B investments in innovative startups with diverse founding teams. They talk about the challenges and triumphs of women in entrepreneurship and their investment philosophy at 1843 Capital. Join us to learn about the competitive advantage of women leaders, about the entrepreneurship and venture capital landscape, and about the innovative startups funded by 1843 Capital.

In this episode, we got to speak with Russell Rogers, Head of the Silicon Valley Innovation Center at DowDuPont. At DowDupont he has experience building an innovation center and R&D tools that enable rapid innovation with a customer-centric approach. In this episode, he discusses the current state of corporate innovation, compares startups to big organizations, and highlights particular strategies that large organizations can use to maintain a culture of innovation. Rogers advises, leads, and partners with individuals, organizations, and institutions to bring technology and fresh thinking to solve problems and create new opportunities for Fortune 500 companies, the military, and startups in the US and abroad.

In this episode of Venture Vignettes, we got to chat with Jay Boddu, VP of New Products at Juniper Networks, where he is responsible for shaping ideas into profitable businesses. He is currently leading the development of a class of new products that leverage Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to reimagine Networking Products.

Concurrently, Jay is a visiting scholar in the Computer Science Department at Stanford University and holds 50+ Patents in High Performance Computing, Networking, Virtualization, and Artificial Intelligence. He is a Board Member/Observer/Advisor/Investor to 30+ start-ups

In this episode, we get to chat about several corporate incubation models, intellectual property, and corporate venture practices.

In this episode of Venture Vignettes, Riana Shah sits down with Paula Mariwala, Founder & Executive director of one of India’s first Venture Capital Funds. Paula walks us through her experiences at SeedFund, providing vivid examples of Indian entrepreneurship and insight into the ins and outs of the emergent entrepreneurial ecosystem. She provides examples of dynamic Indian companies that are executing successfully and having a broad impact on people’s lives.

In this episode, Doug Galen, founder of Rippleworks, a foundation affiliated with Ripple, the cryptocurrency, describes the impact of blockchain on the world. He is also a lecturer at the Stanford GSB and serves on the boards of Heifer International.

Some questions we talk about in this episode:

1. Is Blockchain reality or hype?

2. What are the areas where blockchain is deployed effectively?

3. What is the future of blockchain in social impact?

This week, I'm sitting down with Mar Hershenson, one of the Founding Managing partners at Pear Ventures, a VC firm that supports new entrepreneurs with fresh ideas and funding. After studying electrical engineering at Stanford, Mar co-founded three tech and hardware startups, eventually transitioning to the funding side of VC to found Pear with other immigrants. In this episode we talk about how Dropbox CEO, the interconnection of immigration and entrepreneurship, and scaling a startup the right pace.

This week, I'm sitting down with Mar Hershenson, one of the Founding Managing partners at Pear Ventures, a VC firm that supports new entrepreneurs with fresh ideas and funding. After studying electrical engineering at Stanford, Mar co-founded three tech and hardware startups, eventually transitioning to the funding side of VC to found Pear with other immigrants. In this episode we talk about how Dropbox CEO, the interconnection of immigration and entrepreneurship, and scaling a startup the right pace.

In today’s episode Riana Shah chats with Rashad Moore, an investor who is changing the way capital gets allocated to entrepreneurs.. Rashad was a software engineer by trade, but found his way into the entrepreneurial world after moving to Washington D.C. He began his career by coding for companies in the defense industry and eventually started his own defense contract company, Software Theoretic Corp. After selling his company to a PE firm, he became more involved in investment and venture capital. Now, he is the Founder and Managing Partner of Score 3 (S3) Angels. S3 Angels is an angel network focused on funding African American, Latino, and women-lead high-growth tech startups and aims to change the landscape of venture capital and entrepreneurship. Listen to how he utilized his expertise in company-building and coding to parlay that into the entrepreneurial scene and his thoughts on building a business today.