In this Fund81 podcast episode, I spoke with Bill Maris, an entrepreneur and venture capitalist focused on technology and the life sciences. Bill founded early web hosting pioneer Burlee.com, now part of Web.com, and then went on to found and become the first CEO of Google Ventures or GV. Under his leadership, GV grew from 1 - 70+ team members, across seven offices and had over $3 billion under management. GV made over 350 investments including Uber, Nest, Cloudera, DocuSign, Climate Corp, 23andMe and more. He also created Google's Calico project, a multi-billion dollar company focused on the genetic basis of aging.
Bill left GV in 2016 and recently started his own fund Section 32.
In listening to other interviews with Bill, I learned two unexpected things: Bill is a practicing magician (Who knew?) and an introvert.
I am also an introvert and have been doing a lot of thinking about how my introversion plays into my life as a venture capitalist. Bill and I explore this topic in this episode.
Enjoy.
While holidays are designed to help people rest, I almost always feel exhausted after them. I’ve started to take a completely different approach. Especially if you are a type A entrepreneur, this approach may work for you, too.
Read more ➞I receive far more requests for help than I can possibly fulfill. I am much better at saying no than I used to be, but it is something I am still working on. A friend recently modeled how to say no in a way that was actually more helpful than a yes. I’m going to try her approach going forward.
Read more ➞Asking for a referral can be a delicate request to make, so I am sharing some tips on how to ask for them.
Read more ➞I have been asking for feedback more than usual. I have found that I receive better feedback when I share some context upfront. In case this will help you when you ask for feedback, here is what I've been sharing.
Read more ➞