software-entrepreneur
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Tony Summerville and the One-Year Bet That Outran the Whiteboard
He began with customer interviews, a year-long promise to his wife, and a fleet managed on a whiteboard. Fourteen years later, the Birmingham founder is still proving that the least glamorous problems can carry the longest roads.
Nate Richards Put the Messy Middle of Energy Sales on Speaking Terms
A childhood programmer found his durable business in the least glamorous corner of competitive energy: the handoffs, spreadsheets and commission files between buyers, brokers and suppliers.
Tarek Kamil Built a Career Around One Question: What Is Worth Making?
A school-board volunteer project became Cerkl, but the deeper pattern began much earlier: use software to save people time, make information relevant, and choose the path with fewer regrets.
Christof Wittig Built Hornet for the Long Run
A serial software founder turned a side project into a queer social network used around the world. His playbook is less about growth hacks than endurance, local context and building a place people choose to return to.
Kevin Harvey
Kevin Harvey is a General Partner and co-founder of Benchmark Capital, one of Silicon Valley's most storied venture capital firms, which he helped launch in 1995 alongside Bob Kagle, Bruce Dunlevie, Andy Rachleff, and Val Vaden. Before turning to investing, Harvey built and sold two software companies - StyleWare (acquired by Apple's Claris in 1988, becoming ClarisWorks) and Approach Software (acquired by Lotus in 1993) - giving him rare operator credibility. At Benchmark, he has backed transformative companies including eBay, Twitter, Upwork, MySQL, OpenTable, and Proofpoint. Outside of venture capital, Harvey is the founder of Rhys Vineyards in the Santa Cruz Mountains, a critically acclaimed winery focused on Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, where he applies the same data-driven rigor to terroir as he does to startup evaluation.