George Zachary

George Zachary is a General Partner @ CRV, one of the nation's oldest and most successful early-stage venture capital firms with a portfolio including the likes of Airtable, DoorDash, Dropbox, Niantic and many more. As for George, today at the firm he focuses on advancing health through revolutionary computer science, centred around bio-engineering. During his incredible 16 year tenure at CRV, he has led deals in the likes of PillPack, Udacity, Scribd and HealthIQ. Before joining CRV, George was a General Partner @ Mohr Davidow Ventures for over 6 years. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How George made his way into the world of venture over 21 years ago and how he came to be a General Partner @ CRV 16 years ago? 2.) How did seeing the booms and busts of the dot com and 08 impacts George's investment mindset? What is the right way to voice concerns in an internal investment discussion? How does George now view capital intensity? How does it impact his conviction and check size? 3.) Why does George believe one should invest in founders who do not need their investors help? Why does George believe the best founders have experienced some form of parental instability? How does George detect the psychological need to win when he meets founders? What are the signs? 4.) How would George describe his own philosophy of board membership? How has it changed over time? What are the 2 control functions that a board member has? What advice does George give to new board members today? Where do many young board members make mistakes? 5.) How does George analyse his own personal relationship to money? How has it changed over the years? How did his relationship to money change his relationship with people? Was that challenging? How did he cope with it? How does he advise others who experience the same? Items Mentioned In Today's Show: George's Favourite Book: Foundation Trilogy George's Most Recent Investment: Glympse Bio As always you can follow Harry and The Twenty Minute VC on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.

George Zachary

General Partner

CRV

0:50 Jason intros CRV's George Zachary 2:20 Passing on Google at MDV and coming to peace with the anti-portfolio 5:51 Differences between leadership & management, where Steve Jobs, Larry & Sergey fell on that scale 10:27 Why 1990's VC was sales & marketing-driven instead of product-driven as it is now 12:52 What shifted the philosophy to product-driven businesses? 18:00 Meeting Elon Musk in the 1990's and backing Zip2 21:59 What were Seed investors like in the '90s? Origins of Sand Hill Road 25:48 Elon pitching Zip2 to a conglomerate of venture firms & selling Zip2 for cash 28:07 How VCs can be conceptually right and wrong in the outcome, how X.com merged with Confinity and became PayPal 33:27 Why is it harder to 3x the massive venture funds? How is age a limiting factor in VC? 40:28 "It doesn't make a difference what you pass on. It only takes 1 company to make your career." Positive & negative feedback cycles in VC. 42:54 Battling through multiple portfolio companies dying at once 44:15 What was George's biggest investment hit, both economically & personal fulfillment? 52:37 George describes his recent health scares and how they shifted his investment focus 1:04:06 Reasons the life-expectancy in the US has gone sideways in recent years 1:07:39 Potential health-tech advancements in the near future 1:21:58 Thoughts on CRISPR & "designer babies" 1:30:27 Cell-based fish & meat 1:37:32 Potential coronavirus repercussions - what's real and what's not? 1:55:13 Jason calls for eliminating handshakes

George Zachary

General Partner

CRV