Nick Beim is a Partner @ Venrock where he focuses on internet, mobile, SaaS, big data and fintech investments. Nick blogs on the economics of innovation at www.nickbeim.com. Nick led the initial venture investments in a number of pioneering consumer internet companies including the Gilt Groupe, and Care.com (IPO). He also led the initial investments in a number of today’s leading big data innovators including Dataminr and Intent Media. Prior to joining Venrock, Nick was a General Partner at Matrix Partners and worked in the technology groups at McKinsey and Goldman Sachs. Nick’s primary passion outside of venture investing is international development, in particular accelerating international development through entrepreneurship. Nick serves on the board of Endeavor, a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting entrepreneurs in developing countries that Tom Friedman has called “the best anti-poverty program of all.” In 2011, Forbes named Nick one of the “Elite 8″ to watch in Venture Capital.   In Today's Episode You Will Learn: How Nick made his move into venture and started a bidding contest between two funds a bank for him! How Nick got to be involved with DataMinr and how Nick believes society will use data in the future? How does Nick standout in the super competitive rounds? What is Nick's value add? Is it still harder for female founders to get VC funding? Why?  What can be done to improve this imbalance in the tech ecosystem? What is impact investing? How do you balance LP returns with social impact improvements? Our friend @ August Capital, David Hornik asks Nick, what is the difference between investing in NY compared to SF?    Items Mentioned in Today's Show: Nick's Fave Book: Man's Search For Meaning by Viktor Frankl Nick's Fave Newsletter or Blog: Reid Hoffman, Essays on Entrepreneurship  

Pierre Valade is Co-Founder and CEO @ Sunrise, the beautiful calendar app, acquired by Microsoft for $100m in February 2015, where he now works on Outlook Mobile for Microsoft. Prior to Sunrise, Pierre worked as a UX designer @ Foursquare following a successful hackathon in which he built an app in 6 hours, called Agora. Agora impressed Foursquare Founder, Dennis Crowley to the extent that Pierre was hired in the same month. As a result of Pierre's success he was named on the Innovators Under 35.   In Today's Episode You Will Learn: How Pierre came up with the idea for Sunrise? What made Sunrise standout above all calendar apps as the best calendar? What features are most requested by Sunrise users? How was the design process in altering the design from a iPhone to a Apple Watch? What was Pierre and Sunrise approach to testing and iterating products? Having raised VC funding prior to acquisition, how did Pierre meet his initial investors, what was his fundraising experience like? Were there any surprises or challenges? How did the Microsoft Acquisition come about? How has Pierre's role and Sunrise changed since the acquisition?   Items Mentioned In Today's Episode: Pierre's Fave Book: Zero To One: Peter Thiel Pierre Most Impactful Purchase: iPhone 6 Pierre's Fave Newsletter or Blog: Stratechery by Ben Thompson