Elizabeth Weil (Scribble Ventures) - A People-Centered Journey

Speaker A: This is the Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders Series brought to you by Stanford E Corner and the Stanford Technology Ventures Program.

Speaker B: My name is Emily Ma. I am an adjunct lecturer for the Stanford Technology Ventures Program and your professor for the Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders Series. And I am just so thrilled to be able to sit up here with my classmate from 20 some years ago. We'll just round down to 20. How about that? Elizabeth Wheel. She is the first speaker we're going to have who is both an operator and a venture capitalist. And I'm going to read your formal bio as, um, an intro and then we're going to dive into a bit of a fireside chat.

Speaker C: Where'd this come from? ChatGPT.

Speaker B: Your assistant. Your assistant. I can't tell if it's artificial or human. Uh, but this is what we were, ah, shared ah, uh, with your bio.

Speaker C: So.

Speaker B: Elizabeth Wheel is the founder and GP at Scribble Ventures, a seed fund where builders from OpenAI Meta, Twitter, Instagram and A16Z. I'm Canadian channel their operator DNA, backing the next generation of AI native companies founded in 2020 during the pandemic.

Speaker D: Wow.

Speaker B: Scribble has backed startups such as whatnot, Stoke, base 10, base 10, sorry, uh, periodic labs, Hadrian and Applied Compute, among others. Elizabeth is an early Twitter executive as the company scaled from 50 to 63,000 people. So Twitter is now known as X. She was a just in case, um, uh, she was a partner in Jason Horowitz as the firm was scaling and was most recently a managing director at 137 Ventures. Elizabeth is a Stanford alum, my class of Mayfield Fellows 2003. And I am just so thrilled she can give you a 360 degree view as an operator, as an entrepreneur, as a venture capitalist, and now running her own fund. So, uh, huge round of applause for Elizabeth Wheel. Elizabeth, I can still remember actually we just looked at the photograph. We painted a wall at Old Union as part of our Mayfield Fellows class, um, in 2020 or 2003, I guess it was the summer of 2003 and you have had such an amazing career since then.

Speaker C: I've admired you from afar.

Speaker B: But you chose to actually start, I believe, at ivp, right? You graduated and you chose kind of. Oh, kind of. Well, you did have your Mayfield Fellows summer internship.

Speaker C: Had my Mayfield Fellows summer internship, which was at a company called Auction Drop. So cool. You drop it off, we sell it on ebay. Coolest idea. I had so much fun. Grew from 8th employee to 130 and back down to negative. Um, awesome startup ride and Then I went to a second Mayfield company, Xfire.

Speaker B: Oh, my goodness.

Speaker C: That was back when there were no chat clients. And I'm not a big gamer, but there were no chat clients in, like, World of Warfare.

Speaker B: That's right, that's right.

Speaker C: Um, so we were sold to mtv, Viacom, and then I went and got my first real people job, and that was at Menlo Ventures.

Speaker B: That's it.

Speaker C: Before I crossed the parking lot to.

Speaker B: Oh, my goodness. Okay, so see, there's like all these details I have already missed because you are so, so incredibly active in just shaping your own career and your own professional journey. Maybe tell us a little bit more about that. How did you make those decisions as a 21, 22 year old?

Speaker C: Yeah, it's kind of formed over time too. Um, so when I look back now, it all has come down to three things for me. And so my first hop was to Menlo Ventures, and I remember actually getting an email to the Mayfield Fellows alumni list and it said, menlo Ventures is hiring. And it gave the job description and I was like, this sounds kind of interesting. At that point I was thinking, do I go to a big company like a Google or Yahoo? Yahoo was cool then too. Um, or do I go to a startup or this thing called Venture that I didn't know much about? And I read that description. I was like, that sounds awesome. So I went in and this was very rare, but it was just weird. I interviewed with three partners on one Monday, came back, interviewed with three more on the next Monday, and then had an offer with the last three partners the third Monday.

Speaker B: Huh.

Speaker C: And I was like, well, this sounds kind of awesome, but I really didn't know it was just a crapshoot at that point of would I like Venture? Is it a good place to start? Or do you go to a startup first? And it turned out to be a wildly wonderful training ground. You can't go wrong. But from that way, I got a big catbird seat of I was essentially dialing for dollars and talking to startups out there every single day and, uh, learning what patterns to actually pick up. But the core three things that I've always oriented my work, career and life decisions. Life decisions. Overall, I would say number one is the people. So who are you working with? Number two for me is location. And that's. I think everyone can put that in a weird, different spot. But for me, life's too short to get either have a long commute or to not be able to cram in the other interests in your life into your day. With work. And number three is am I learning? And anytime those have gotten out of whack, that's when I voted with my feet and moved. And I now joke with running Scribble Ventures. Six years in and currently investing out of our third fund. It's my fault if I mess that up so I'll never have to get another job because choosing the people I work with. My office is a quarter mile from my house, and I'm a big runner swimmer. I have three little kids. Um, and then am I learning? And I get to learn absolutely every single day. And I think especially this climate we're in now, it's such a fun spot to be learning and growing and building.

Speaker B: So you really valued finding people who could give you a leg up. Right. I think you have a spiny sense for that as you kind of gone from auction drop to X fire to Menlo to Andreessen Horwood. Like, you just kind of found the right people. So could you maybe tell us a little bit more about how you developed that spiny sense?

Speaker C: Yeah. And I don't look at it as finding the people that could, like, help you get up. It was more. I've just always been interested in people. And I always joke that in a, uh, female career, there's two times where you can totally ignore your email. And one is on your honeymoon and two is on maternity leave. And when I looked at those two times in my life, I'm like, what was I doing? I was connecting people. I was introducing startups to other folks. Oh, you should meet this person you're interested in. X, Y or Z. And that's just so natural to what I love to do. Um, I grew up in a tiny town, um, near Sacramento called Orangevale. And my mom was a second grade teacher at my neighborhood School day on the street. My parents were divorced, uh, but my mom just made shelter. She's still alive, 84 years old, still running marathons and swimming every day. And little kids still bring over flat frogs and reptiles to our doorstep. And she knows the sandwich maker at the deli and her coffee shop people and our postman. And it was always this, I think, craving of mine to make a big world feel small. And I've tried to do that. I did that over Stanford. I knew the great salad maker at, ah, Tressiter. And, uh, you just collect all these people and, you know, it makes everyone. It's like there's something interesting about everyone. And I think that's. I've just been curious. And then the more people you Connect. Then they go on to connect beyond you and more interesting things happen. And I think that's why this is absolutely the perfect job for me too. But I would say especially as, uh, you start to grow your career. I was thinking about this today and my time at Twitter, I mean, 50 to 3,000 people over four years was a wild ride. Like, you are too busy every day. Uh, you don't have a gap in your calendar and it is mission critical what you're working on. But after a few years into Twitter, I made a rule for myself. Always at least once a week, have a coffee, a lunch with some interesting other person that doesn't work, work at Twitter. And those are the people that you're going to find your next job from. Those are the people that are going to plant a seed in your head about a new area that's growing. Uh, and I think that the more you apply that to just meet somebody new and they'll brain expand you. And if nothing else, it's a wasted hour and that's okay. And you'll still learn something.

Speaker B: In these cases, would you recommend our students just write to these folks or, you know, find a way to chat with. How do you, how do you land a coffee chat like that? Because it's not like, it's not necessarily easy. It might be easy to you, but maybe not easy to everyone.

Speaker C: So it is very organic. But even the people that you're meeting in classes that you just don't know, like they have something interesting about them or they might be interested in longevity and health tech. And then you have this other friend that's interested in aging and you put, you know, so just keeping an open mind. But also, I think you'd be so shocked at how willing, especially the Stanford alumni group is willing to return an email, hop on a zoom, take a walk, have a meal, grab a coffee. We've all been there. And I think something so unique and why I do not think universities are dead, even with, uh, AI, especially universities like Stanford. Uh, I think there's just this shared mafia feeling that you'll always be a part of this crew for the rest of your life. Uh, so start there, but then that'll expand beyond.

Speaker B: Yeah, it's so interesting to sort of round the loop for our students here. If you remember, in week two, we had Brendan Foody come and he dropped out of school. He dropped out of Georgetown at the end of sophomore year. And he talked about how it wasn't necessarily the academic experience that was most important to him. Literally building a Billion dollar company in 18 months. But it was the community. Right? So you live within a community. So tap into that incredible community. And I really liked how you described it as kind of a little bit of a mafia.

Speaker E: Right?

Speaker B: It does come with that and make the most of that, that you're part of this family.

Speaker C: And I do just look at life like this giant scavenger hunt. And I think that's what's so fun about starting today and putting the pieces together.

Speaker B: Okay, let's reflect a little bit, actually. Operator and then VC experiences before we come back to scribble. So you, you've been an operator. I mean 50 to 3,000 at Twitter. You saw that kind of growth. I mean, obviously you were also in a couple of other companies. What were some key lessons you learned as an operator that you still hold true in your heart today? Uh,

Speaker C: when you're building something, you have that skip in your step. And that's what I want every person here to find. When I was at Twitter, every day was so energizing. And you were working with the best, like best people in my career. But on again, coming back to the people side. Um, so I ran acquisitions BD at the time, sold the first Twitter ad like it was the wild west. Then it was everything kind of non eng and it morphed and grew. And then I was focused on culture for a bit and did our new hire orientation every Monday. Like it was just, um, it was a fun, fun time. But what I learned early from the Twitter experience, and this is no credit to me, but the early founding team and the people that went before me is everybody there was interesting in something else in addition to their day job.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker C: And it just made for this really robust, enriched culture where you'd sit at a table and you'd be, yes, with a world class engineer, but then they're also the world's champion of the Rubik's Cube. Or a tennis player that had been to the Olympics once and it was just, it made such a rich environment and it almost created this sense of assume everybody is here for a reason and it gave you this benefit of the doubt. So we just operated really well together as a team and it's something that I've always tried to put into teams as I go forward. Assume everyone's here for a reason and give the benefit of the doubt. And. And it just can really build awesome communities that way too.

Speaker B: I want to take a slight sidebar now, since we just spoke about everybody is more than their professional role. I mean, you and I uh, I've known about your letter press work for the last 30 years. You've been an ultra marathoner who's amazing. Why are these, what role do they play in you being a fulfilled person? I suspect it's really important to do all these things that don't necessarily make money or advance our careers. But can we take a moment to talk about these things?

Speaker C: Yeah. Uh, and especially as you get married, have kids, grow family, have a home, all of the other pieces, you don't do it perfectly. Uh, something my mom feels still wildly guilty about that every morning. Uh, she was runner and swimmer like I mentioned. Every morning at 4 o' clock she woke up. She left at 4:30 to go swim masters down the street from my house. And she'd leave out my breakfast and my vitamins and my orange juice. But she still feels wildly guilty that every morning I woke up to a house alone and I got my clothes on, she honked the horn when it was time to go to school. It made me a wildly like independent kiddo, which I now I look back on. This is the same torture I do to my three children now too. And I have applied it more as I need one. And I think everybody in this room needs one non negotiable every single day. And I don't care if that's athletics, meditation, writing, whatever. Mine is my morning run. And I, when I had my. I have an 11, uh, year old now and nine year old twins when I had the twins especially and my first. I suppose you feel so guilty running out the front door when that little person needs you and they're always going to need you. And I had to make it the practice that that's my non negotiable. That makes me a happier, healthier, employee, mom, friend, wife, everything. And I've applied that uh, to every single day. So I cram those things in also. Um, I do. I have scarred my kids that way. I wake up at 5:20, I put out breakfast for my three children. They make it, eat it, pack their lunches and set Alexa for when they get on their bikes to go to school. I am not involved in that equation. And I've had to give up of like they are not dressed perfectly 50, 50 of hairs brushed. But they make it to school, they're safe, they're happy and, and they know that mom's morning run makes me a better person. Uh, and then also I think having the ability to intertwine a lot of parts of your life, that's something I'm comfortable with. Some people wanna keep business and state totally, or church and state and business and life totally separate. I feel like it's super enriching when some of you might know my children, my husband been to my house, left for my driveway to go for a walk and my office is a quarter mile down the street. So my, you know, at 3 o', clock, my children bomb my whatever zoom I'm in to, you know, steal from my candy jar and ride their bikes home. And it feels like it's messy, but it's fun and it makes you a more real person too, I think. Uh, so it's just a way that I've like, made it all work because it doesn't all work and it's very messy.

Speaker B: At the end of the day, if I reflect on everything that you said, we're humans first, right? We might work for organizations large and small, but we're humans first. And we can honor each other as fully complete human beings inside and outside of work. We can make it through the hard times. We can problem solve together more effectively. Who knows? You never know that some of these hidden skills that people have or hidden passions people have might actually be relevant to the job. And so, um, let me come back to scribble. Uh, you started it at a really interesting time, the pandemic time. Well, interesting, but I prefer to call it as interesting.

Speaker D: Right.

Speaker B: There were a lot of emerging funds. It was like literally first time worldwide pandemic. Um, you had also worked at a number of other VC firms. What sparked your desire to start your own fun and specifically pre seed.

Speaker C: Yes. Uh, and I think it was ultimately being stubborn. So, uh, the funny story is, so I'd finished, uh, at 1:37 and I was, uh, for the first time thinking, like, what do I want to do? And I hated selling Girl Scout cookies. So I never wanted to raise a fund. I never wanted to ask a single person for money. It was like the last thing I was gonna do. So as I had, you know, I was kind of bopping around, I had a few. I was like, I can't just be an angel investor. That sounds lame. And then, you know, you get some random offers to join a larger fund. I had a group actually say, like, what if we're your single LP and you run a seed experiment? We don't wanna start an incubator or a seed program, but we'd love that, um, a look at that part of the market. And I thought, well, man, there's no such thing as a free lunch. This sounds pretty good though. And that started December of 2019.

Speaker D: Wow.

Speaker C: And I was investing. We had the model out. I was investing my own name. So it was like, very clean. I'm like, man, this is too good to be true. Um, I could go to the office if I wanted to, but I didn't have to if I didn't. So I invested December, January, February, and that first week of March. Got an email, came as Monday morning. And they're like, let's just pause. And I was like, pause. We're like at an inflection point in the universe right now, going into a global pandemic. Like, everything's going to change, even if it's, you know, it's going to move markets one way or the other. But why do you want to miss, uh, you know, all of that? And the pause was another week, another week. Let's just pause. And I think there was the gotcha. It's like there was no such thing as a free lunch. And I ultimately wasn't the decision maker to do that. So being stubborn. If I wanted to build a world class venture firm and invest in pre seed and seed opportunities at that point in time, I needed to raise capital, I needed to do it fast. I had, uh, one, uh, year old twins and a three year old that were being told to do zoom school, uh, you know, remotely. It doesn't work so well when you can't read. Um, so life was really messy and it was the worst time. And I walked miles and miles in Portola Valley, where I live, dialing for dollars essentially, but really starting to learn LPs. Um, a lot of just my existing network of the people that put me in business were executives, operators, other people that just took a bet. And now, um, have about nearly 300 million under management in six years. So we're growing.

Speaker B: And this is your third fund?

Speaker C: Third fund. God, and two breakout funds.

Speaker B: You're amazing. Okay. For our students, um, who are curious, what is pre seed?

Speaker C: Right?

Speaker B: There's seed, there's series A, B, C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C, you know. Yeah. What is pre seed and how did you think about like fund size, check size, who you were looking for? Like talk through, you know, like maybe some of the basics of what this is.

Speaker C: Um, so one of the things I've always been able to do in my venture career is invest collaboratively. I've either been in a role that allowed that or a fund that, a size that allowed that. And I really wanted that for scribble. Um, sharp elbowed is not my style. I think you can build a more robust cap table when you have others on it with you that are helping with different superpowers. So Scribble One was a $50 million fund focused on Pre seed and Seed, uh, writing, you know, now we write roughly 750k to 1.5 million initial check. So right there to be next to another grade on the cap table that looks similar to us. Pre um Seed is often a couple of founders, maybe a light PowerPoint and idea starting to grow and build. Uh, you are putting in, you know, maybe the round is 1 to 2 million seeds have graduated so much larger now, especially in this day and age. But it's really a lot more hands on with that founder. Often, you know, when we're in Pre Seed opportunities, we're introducing them to their banker, we're helping them meet with a real estate person to get some square feet in San Francisco. Uh, so you're helping all over the place, let alone strategy Seed. It's a little bit, uh, a little bit bigger, a little bit baked, uh, and larger rounds now. But I just think so much of the Scribble model is backing. I say top 1% founders that are doing wild swings and the people that you want to be in business with no matter what. At Pre Seed and Seed there's still a huge likelihood to shift, pivot, change, wind down. Uh, but the people you want to be in business with over and over again. And that's what I really try to strike high for with Scribble at the Pre seed and seed levels.

Speaker B: What makes for a 1% top 1% founder or founding team?

Speaker F: Uh, wow.

Speaker C: You can feel it. You can feel it. Uh, today I wanted to like when like the intro was right, the idea was right and I just was like, uh, like it's just like not those people that you wanted to go meet and brainstorm with and whiteboard. I want to have that feeling that you're going to run through walls. Uh, and then that guttural desire of why you this person on the planet to build this company. And sometimes that comes back and down to what your mom did or where you grew up or some formative life experience. Like I m met somebody in a fintech space and he had to go knock door to door doing collections when he was younger for something uh, like that shaped why he needed to build this. And when you just have that guttural desire that I'm going to make this happen, this is my life's work. Like when it hits that then you really feel like it.

Speaker B: You know, I've picked up on a theme here. There's something about dialing for dollars, going door to door. There's something about, you know, as engineers, I think I'm very introverted. I was very introverted. But I learned how to show up. I learned how to persist. I learned how to take, you know, 90 no's to get one yes. Right. Can we pause for a second and talk about that? Because it sounds like this is like a theme.

Speaker D: Right?

Speaker B: You know, you've done it. Founders who can have the grit to persist through a lot of no's.

Speaker C: And a lot of people say that the best job, even if it's not what you think you want to go into, is sales and learning how to do sales. Uh, that always terrified me. I didn't want to have a bounty on my head because it would show a number of, like, was I not performing? I bet a lot of people in this audience would kill it at sales. Soon as you get a number that you're trying to hit, plus an add on or a commission or something, I bet a lot of people would realize you like it. And I never did do that because it terrified me. But you have to grow that skill somehow. And raising a fund, I definitely had to build that skill.

Speaker B: How did you get over your terror?

Speaker F: Oh,

Speaker C: you know, some people say, and I don't really subscribe to this, some people say, like, look at it like you're doing them a favor. You're allowing them the opportunity to invest in scribble. That's cool. I think that's not totally my style. I, um, wish I could think that way. Uh, I think I again, look at it like a scavenger hunt. Like one of my LPs I walked with today. Uh, it's a big multifamily office or, um, a, ah, single family office. But they have some stakes in Anheuser Busch bottling facilities in, and like, sports teams in Switzerland and just weird things. One LP that I met, uh, the largest pistachio farmer, and you're like, kind of cool. And so, uh, you look at it as like, everybody has a story. Somebody else I met today, her mom started United Colors of Benetton. I don't even know if that exists anymore. But, you know, you just like, there's always some weird story. And so I just look at it more as a journey of getting to know people and then, um, yeah, making the ask and really crafting my own cap table that I enjoy. And that's my goal.

Speaker B: You know, you have the most amazing collection of interesting people for Real.

Speaker C: I like that. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: If it would be literally the United Colors of Benton.

Speaker E: Right.

Speaker B: Like all these colors.

Speaker C: And that was just today.

Speaker B: That was one day. My God, that's so crazy. Um, tell me a little bit more about some of the, um, domains that you're excited about right now. I think as students are looking to join organizations or do their own startups, what verticals or what domains or horizontals are of interest to you that are important for this moment in time?

Speaker C: I do think AI. We don't even have to say AI now because I think that has underpinnings in absolutely everything going forward. Uh, so take that on. I think everything we do touches that. Um, and we do touch a lot of things, like fintech, dev tools. We love some of those. Just the very traditional, cool things to invest in. Uh, we've been doing AI since the start of the fund six years ago. Uh, my husband recently spent, uh, the last two years at OpenAI. Um, and before had been at Planet Labs in the space side of the world. Had co founded Libra, Facebook's crypto stuff. So we have weird investments across crypto space, deep tech, AI, uh, and one of the big categories right now that we've been looking into, uh, there's a lot going on in the longevity and health side, drug discovery and AI. We have a material science company. Um, we invested in our first peptide company.

Speaker B: Uh-huh.

Speaker C: Uh, so there's so much happening all over the space. And I like some of those other. I think education is. I think we are all going to have a tutor in our pockets, and that's still taking. We haven't seen the big form factor there. Um, also, I think each and every one of us will be able to outlast ourselves. And what I mean by that is I think my children will be able to query my brain and they might be able to say, like, where was your favorite child experience? Uh, or I know you had high blood pressure. What medication worked for you? And so I think there will be this weird how are we living beyond ourselves? Um, so many of the old archaic industries are being changed with great AI tools. And that's something that we deeply, deeply invest in. But some of these bigger swings, we've done a lot in defense tech recently. Um, and then some of. We just did our first data centers in space investment. So we take some of these really huge swings too. So I think why I like the portfolio strategy is you have some of these real nuts and bolts that you're going to see sell the enterprises, go the Traditional way, and then the big thinking ideas of what else is going to exist. And I think each and every one of us will be shocked that two of you are taking the same prescription drug. I think we will all have customized medicine, you know, in a matter of years. And I think we'll be shocked at some of the things that just so quickly, uh, can change and improve for the better.

Speaker B: Amazing. Amazing. Okay, uh, I'm going to ask two more questions. The first one is quite important. You have, you know, you are a power couple. You and Kevin. Elizabeth and Kevin Rio, power couple. Probably the first power couple who have both individually actually spoken at etl.

Speaker C: Um, he got asked first.

Speaker B: That was a mistake on our part.

Speaker C: He's a pretty good.

Speaker B: We love you, Kevin. Um, tell us how maybe. How do you make that work? Right, because at the end of the day, you are a team as well.

Speaker C: That is true in the people thread of who you choose. Choose who you marry. Well, if you do marry, that is number one. Don't mess it up. No, I. So Kevin and I actually met at Stanford on the triathlon team. And I was wildly younger than I thought. I'd never. I hadn't dated anyone seriously through that. He'd done his, unfortunately, his undergrad at Harvard and came out for his PhD, uh, in theoretical particle physics at Stanford. So there was no way I was going to overlap with that guy in any of my classes. Uh, but we met on the triathlon team, and it was very odd, like when, you know, you know, I thought I was going to be marrying a physics professor that was going to, like, take me to Ohio or something. And he started seeing that I was in venture, and venture was, you're meeting different people and you're talking to companies. And he started getting interested in this startup thing, and he joined, uh, some classmates from Harvard that were working on a muni wifi thing. He started to get the bug. And then I came home from Institutional Venture Partners and I said, hey, we need somebody to start the analytics team at Twitter. We'd made the investment in Twitter, and he's like, I can do that. I have no idea why he thought he could go take an engineering job at Twitter, but he was hired as the 30th employee on the spot by Abbott and Biz. And then he was having so much fun. That's what ultimately got me over to Twitter. And in the early days, we were scaling so quickly, most people didn't know we were married. We were married. Um, we had bought our house in Porto Valley, actually, before we Were married and before we left Stanford. And so we've been very used to working in the same area. Some people are like totally polarized by, oh, a couple that's working together. Because he's part of Scribble as well. It's not his day job, he's a day to day operator. But all of our, we don't do any personal angel investing anymore. It all comes through Scribble. So we like keeping him as an operator. He has great own networks. Uh, but it's always just worked. Uh, it's fun being included in dinners where often people seat us at different ends of the table and we're like, no, we actually, that would be a date night. Like we want to be seated together. Because the hard part is two people going in extremely different directions too. We just don't overlap that much. Um, raising independent kids has been one of the hacks. It's not, you know, kids still need lots of time and love, so it's not the only hack. But, um, we say no to a lot of things. So we, uh, don't do very much on weekends that isn't kids, sports, family related because there's just not enough hours in the day. But I think he makes me better as an investor, an operator and a person. And I think the ability to have that shared language and talk things through, it actually makes for a really fun and interesting life. Uh, I also think it allows us to have this shared language that we can use with the kids. Like the kids see what we do too. And instead of trying to hide our work, uh, they are in it as well. So it's extremely messy, we're out of time, we're often snappy and I would not. It's not perfect, but we are so driven by the work we do to that. It's less the feeling, uh, of, oh, you're going out to do this work dinner or you have to go take this meeting. It's kind of this shared language that what we do is important to us. We love it, we're in it. And it means you had a lot of shared friends too, that we've just been able to make it all work and overlap into our networks.

Speaker B: So beautiful. Okay, final question. Uh, as you know, as you know Tina very well. So Tina Selig was the founder of the Entrepreneurial salaries series over 25 years ago, I believe she, uh, wrote a book called what I Wish I Knew when I was 20. So if you can, you know, take a time machine back to when you were 20. Emma, um, snee I believe student.

Speaker C: Oh, man.

Speaker B: What is one one? One sentence you would tell yourself about what's to come?

Speaker C: Who gave away a lot of my secrets. One thread would have been the people, like, make time to be interested in others and take that coffee even when you're really busy on a problem set or, uh, studying for a midterm or something. Um, I think I would have to bring it back to choose one non negotiable for yourself that you are going to prioritize and that will make you a happier, healthier human forever going forward. And you're allowed to choose. There's 24 hours in every day you're allowed to choose one for yourself. And I think the quicker you can do that, the better. Um, so I wish I'd known I didn't have to put in my time until I got to choose.

Speaker B: Nice.

Speaker C: Get to choose up front.

Speaker B: Nice.

Speaker C: Own it up front.

Speaker B: Okay, we're going to go start Q and A. If Yixuan could advance the slide.

Speaker D: Hi, thank you for being here. Um, I'm Isha and I'm really curious about the wellness space. What are some trends you're seeing? And you talked a little bit about the peptides. Can you expand on that? And if you could build one thing out of that, what would that be?

Speaker C: That's what we're letting our founders do. I'm just thinking of the big area. The longevity space really does interest me. And I think so much comes down to personalized medicine. Some of the drug discovery and AI companies that we're doing are able to slice and dice things. We even have one that is able to engineer drugs that will go in and essentially be able to prevent some surgeries. So doing some of the things, uh, um, via medication format, um, on the peptides specifically, I think this is an area that's evolving. I am not the poster child for it yet because there's a lot to discover. But everybody is wanting to be on this. Not everybody, but many people are wanting to be on this planet longer. And now we have the technology and the deep science to advance that. So, uh, I think we're investors in a bridge. There's so much more even in the technology layer of what's going on within hospitals to help absolutely push medicine forward down to the drugs. If I had to go into something, I think I would pair up with somebody and go into a unique AI drug discovery company right now. I love that space. Thank you.

Speaker F: I also love meeting a lot of interesting and quirky people. One of them is like a peptide dealer that I met recently. Yeah. And I was wondering, since you are a VC and you meet a lot of these people, um, I'm sure there's so many that you've already met as well. So how do you keep in touch and be selective about who to deepen relationships with with your limited time?

Speaker C: Oh, that's. That's a good question. Uh, so I do a lot of walks. People that will walk with me get more of my. More of my time. You know, sometimes it's just that vibe of I have, like, my few close besties and then keeping just like a good rotation. And I think something that I do pretty well is pick right back up with people. So I've never had that relationship, um, mentality of, oh, you're dead to me. Like, I haven't seen you in a year. I like picking right back up. So I think people that just make an effort and it's always like, be beneficial to each other. So reach out and you have a tip or a book or I know you like this, or I saw this and thought of you. So just kind of those normal, being human ways. But that's a good question. I do not have a CRM that's, like, built and telling me who to go on a walk with. That could be done.

Speaker G: Um, thank you for your talk. It was quite, uh, inspiring. Uh, I think, uh, I have a rather selfish ask. So right now I am, uh, in that stage where I'm still in the minus 1 to 0 phase, where I'm trying to talk to as many people go on those coffee chats. And I'm doing this thing where every great VC that I find, I take a selfie with them and I save that with your email. And someday, when I do start towards the later, uh, half of the year, um, I will send you a picture with, with that selfie and maybe we can go on a coffee shop.

Speaker C: You're allowed. Good. I'll do it.

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: Yes, go ahead. This is gonna be a first for etl.

Speaker C: It's gonna be pretty uncomfortable.

Speaker B: That's cool. That's right. We're gonna demonstrate how to get someone's email.

Speaker C: So the funny thing about this is when I'm dialing for dollars or I'm trying to meet LPs, there are a few conferences that I go to that you just don't remember all of the people. And that's actually the way I do because I'm just kind of gutsy and I'm like, selfie. And, you know, I'm kind of a little avant. Garde. You can tell. So selfie this. I'm usually wearing something bright. Send them a text right there with it, and then it's the best way to remember who that person was, because that I do. You do meet a lot of people who don't have very great memory, so. Yes.

Speaker B: Speaking of which, rather than emails, you text them. Yes. So that's another tip, right, to get onto people's radar. Sometimes a plain old call on the phone or a text actually works better.

Speaker C: Yep. Then you can always move it to email.

Speaker G: Can I go for one more?

Speaker D: I don't know.

Speaker B: Yeah, you got a little bit of time. Go for it.

Speaker G: Uh, one more. One of the things is, okay, when I want an investment, um, I can probably extend my network and figure out a way to get that, you know, the. The vc. But it has to, like, extend my warm network. And in a way, you know, that's the truest test. Can you figure out a way to get a warm intro?

Speaker C: That is the way I will not respond to something if it's totally blind. It at least, like, puts some ounce of energy into a warm connection.

Speaker G: But for me, you know, it's like, I can do that effort. But some VCs are, like, super direct, and they're like, okay, you know what a cold DM works. And some. My. My thought process is like, hey, I will figure out a way to get a warm intro to you, but if I had to do a cold outreach just to cover a large surface area, what's the right way to do it?

Speaker B: Huh? Hmm.

Speaker C: Okay, so if you have to. Because I think, given this day and age, like, you can find somebody that knows somebody, knows somebody. We have LinkedIn, for heaven's sake. Even if it's bad, uh, I have responded to the very cold that didn't have it come via person. If they dig up something so random about me, like. Like, somebody found out that I was the first pole vaulting female at my school in high school. We're like, where the heck did you find that? Somebody else found out that was a Rube Goldberg device champion in eighth grade, uh, gold medal. And, like, when somebody. Science would be a nerd, but when somebody, like, finds something now, like, go do. Yeah. Something random where you're like, that's just weird. And I like it.

Speaker B: Yeah. Wow. Wow.

Speaker C: Be crafty.

Speaker B: Thanks for the. That's very cool. Very cool. Come on up.

Speaker E: Hi. Hi. I'm Pratik. Uh, so, uh, like, I think, uh, Bay Area is blessed, as in, like, uh, this area has this great, uh, ecosystem right? Of innovations, of venture capitalist and university. So I want to know, like, uh, what are some of the events that you look forward to? Like some annual events or, you know, or maybe it could be something that happens once in five years.

Speaker C: Huh, huh, huh. That's a good question. Um, selfishly, we do camp scribble in our backyard every year. And that's like our founders, some of our investors, our extended network. Uh, so that's kind of the one I get to craft. I really like smaller events. Typically we host maybe 12 to 14 scribble dinners every year. Lunches or, you know, picnic hikes and pick theme, pick a founder lens, pick a, um, interest area. And I really like that like 15 to 20 person small network get to know someone can swap the stories. So that's probably, uh, not a specific thing, but just size of what I try to put out. Conferences are tricky. Uh, go to them in the early years because that's where you build people and interest. Often I, I feel like, uh, the agenda on paper looks like you have to be in that room all day long. It sounds so amazing, but really it's the ones that have the right people community that I prioritize and spend time going to. So I would say craft what is interesting to you, find some interest areas. But then, um, I think the people in the room is always the most important part. So that's not a very specific answer. But, um, what go what you're interested to.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: Even here, being on campus.

Speaker E: Yeah.

Speaker B: I definitely used to walk into classrooms I had no business walking into. Like, that's cool.

Speaker C: Greek classics or something.

Speaker F: Who knows?

Speaker B: Still find, you know, something that you might be interested in, uh, by just walking into. Have you ever walked into some other classroom that you have no business walking into? Okay. Yeah, it's definitely worth, worth an experience

Speaker C: and sometimes do it, you know, I, if you get invited to something at the computer history museum, you're like, you're at least going to see something else. New or different networks. Often some of these ones are just trying to get reach. So maybe it's the Irish innovators group coming out and they did something on St. Patrick's Day and I was like, what the heck? I'm a little bit Irish. Could be fun. Yeah. More collecting random people.

Speaker B: Okay, what was the last one? Follow up question on that. What was the last big conference you went to that you enjoyed?

Speaker C: Ooh, I, um, this was, and it's a newish one and it was very, uh, weird and odd. Two weeks ago I had to speak at a longevity Summit. Right before Jane Fonda, of all people.

Speaker B: What.

Speaker C: Who is 88 and still alive.

Speaker B: Jesus.

Speaker C: Uh, and looks like she's like 58. That, uh, was bizarre because it was so out of my normal. Normally it's VCs and things. So that was. I think it's fun to go. To have a different slice of humanity. And that was a definite different slice of humanity.

Speaker B: So it was called the Longevity Conference.

Speaker C: It was Longevity Summit in San Francisco.

Speaker B: Wow. Okay, last question, final question.

Speaker F: This one's a little off topic. I'm Leo. I'm a track athlete here and I.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker F: I'm guessing that with everything you're doing, you're getting to go to a lot of cool places. So I'm really curious what the coolest places that you've run are, like the nicest.

Speaker C: Oh, okay. And what, what track event?

Speaker F: 1500, but I have to run the

Speaker C: 10k and cross fast. Oh, good. Okay. So I did the Himalaya 100 mile miler in the Himalaya in India. That was crazy. Um, one foot in Nepal, one foot in India, so it's like right on the border there. That was wild but awesome. Uh, Kevin and I do usually plan our vacations where we go and wear ourselves out somewhere and then we lay on a beach for two days. Uh, I would say don't be scared as you start to travel to do some of these, but then lean on other runners in the community. Um, we created a long run in Vietnam, like a stage race of our own. Again, like meeting different people, uh, and finding a way to do that. So we try to go in all different terrains. Um, Switzerland, we've run. I mean, I run everywhere I go. Uh, but really trying to push you out of the ordinary and exploring trails. Kevin's amazing. We were, uh, in, um, Australia last September speaking at a conference, and then we asked the coordinators where would be an amazing place to go and run, and they sent us on a two day place out in the mountains. Most epic run, um, I've ever been on. So again, just like head of that scavenger hunt of weird places. But that is very. That's like kind of our type of vacation.

Speaker F: That's fantastic.

Speaker C: Oh, I'll give you a rundown.

Speaker B: I expect you to be running in the Himalayas soon, so.

Speaker F: Yeah, I hope so. That'd be great.

Speaker B: All right.

Speaker C: Keep it up. Yeah.

Speaker B: We do have to bring this to a close. Quick note for everyone. Next week we have Ellen Akua, who was the director for Johnson Space center for NASA. Come and talk to us about not only being an astronaut, but also running NASA, which is, you know, I think I'm very excited to hear from her about Artemis 2.

Speaker C: Am I allowed to come back?

Speaker B: You're allowed to come back anytime. Oh, my goodness. But with that, I want to give a huge round of applause and thank you to Elizabeth Wheel. Thank you so much for coming here with you.

Speaker A: The Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders series is an original production of Stanford E Corner and the Stanford Technology Ventures program. To learn more, please Visit us at STVP Stanford. Edu eCorner.