tech-investor
(29)
Liron Shapira
Liron Shapira is a startup founder, angel investor, and host of Doom Debates, a podcast and YouTube show built to raise mainstream awareness of human extinction risk from artificial superintelligence. He is the cofounder and CEO of Relationship Hero, a Y Combinator-backed coaching service that has guided more than 100,000 clients, and was previously cofounder and CTO of the app-search company Quixey. A fixture of the online rationalist community, he is known for putting his probability of AI-caused doom near 50% by 2050, for his sharp public critiques of crypto and web3, and for turning a $10,000 early bet on Coinbase into roughly $6 million while still calling cryptocurrency essentially worthless.
David Mandel
David Mandel is a Los Angeles entrepreneur and tech investor who co-founded and chairs YEBO, a no-code platform that helps brands build and manage Web3 digital assets, NFTs and blockchain loyalty programs. He is also co-founder and chairman of Bitvore, an AI and machine-learning company whose risk and business-signal data has been used across Wall Street by firms including S&P, Moody's, Fidelity, Wells Fargo, UBS and AIG. A math graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, he holds patents in data visualization and was an early seed investor in companies such as Broadcom, Access360 (acquired by IBM) and Fulcrum Microsystems (acquired by Intel).
David Sacks
David Sacks is a South African-born Silicon Valley operator turned venture capitalist and political power broker. He was PayPal's first product leader and COO, founded and sold Yammer to Microsoft for $1.2 billion, rescued Zenefits as interim CEO, and co-founded Craft Ventures, which manages billions in assets. He is a co-host of the chart-topping All-In podcast and served as the first White House AI and Crypto Czar in the second Trump administration before stepping aside in March 2026.
Chelsea Stoner
Chelsea Stoner is a General Partner at Battery Ventures who hunts down vertically focused software companies and healthcare-IT operators across North America. She joined Battery in 2006 and has helped scale Avalara, Glassdoor, Guidewire, Marketo, RealPage and WebPT, among others. Recognized on Forbes Midas Hot Prospects and GrowthCap's Top 25 Healthcare Investors.
Dharmesh Thakker
Dharmesh Thakker is a General Partner at Battery Ventures, one of the world's longest-running technology venture capital firms, where he leads investments in infrastructure software, AI-powered applications, cloud/DevOps, data, security, and open source. An immigrant from India turned engineer turned VC, he joined Battery in 2015 after leading Intel Capital's global cloud and big-data practice. He holds a BS in electrical engineering from UT Austin and an MBA from Wharton. His portfolio spans category-defining companies including Databricks, Postman, Gong, ClickHouse, and Weaviate, with notable exits including Confluent (IPO), JFrog (IPO), and Sumo Logic (IPO). He hosts the 'Billion-Dollar B2B' podcast, writes for TechCrunch and Forbes, and was named to the Forbes Midas Brink list in 2016.
Frédérique Dame
Frédérique Dame is a General Partner at GV (Google Ventures), where she leads investments in consumer technology, life sciences, and AI. A French immigrant who moved to Silicon Valley at 24, she built her career as a product and engineering leader at Yahoo!, Photobucket, SmugMug, and Uber — where she helped scale the company from 80 employees to 7,000+ across 68 countries. At GV she co-leads the Women's Health investment team and has backed companies including Midi Health, Found, Allara, Oula Health, and TMRW. She serves on the board of Les Mills International and previously on Ubisoft's board, and was named to Rock Health's Top 50 in Digital Health.
Jeremy Schneider
Jeremy Schneider is General Partner at Webb Investment Network (WIN), the San Francisco-based single-family investment office founded by Maynard Webb, former COO of eBay. Since joining WIN in 2011, Schneider has helped build a portfolio of 121 companies including unicorns Ironclad, IPOs like Okta, PagerDuty, and AppLovin, and 48 acquisitions. A Dartmouth and Oxford-trained historian turned venture capitalist, Schneider is known for betting on founders over ideas, building WIN's affiliate network of 90+ seasoned operators, and offering hands-on support that one founder described as worthy of a statue.
Jennifer Vancini
Jennifer Vancini is Co-Founder and General Partner at Mighty Capital, one of Silicon Valley's few woman-owned venture capital firms. With 20+ years in technology investments and M&A, she co-founded Mighty Capital in 2017 alongside SC Moatti, leveraging a network of 600,000+ product leaders to identify breakout B2B tech startups early. The firm's track record includes six IPOs in eight years - including early bets on Amplitude and Groq - and the April 2026 close of a $91M Fund III, triple its predecessor. Before VC, Vancini built a career spanning enterprise BD roles at Certicom, Symbian, Nokia, and Telefónica, culminating in a family investment office that returned 15x cash-on-cash before she co-founded Mighty Capital.
Max Motschwiller
Max Motschwiller is a General Partner at Meritech Capital, a Palo Alto-based growth investment firm behind more than $150 billion in IPOs. He leads investments in enterprise software and fintech at Series B, with a focus on companies scaling toward market leadership. Before Meritech, he backed Uber, Duolingo, Dropcam, and MyFitnessPal at Kleiner Perkins, and spent three years at Summit Partners executing growth equity deals. Named to Forbes 30 Under 30 in 2015, Motschwiller brings an edge forged at Harvard lacrosse, two VC institutions, and a sharp eye for companies that define their categories.
Harj Taggar
Harj Taggar is a Managing Partner at Y Combinator and serial founder who went from Oxford law to Silicon Valley startup culture. He co-founded Auctomatic with the Collison brothers (Patrick and John, later of Stripe fame) in 2007, sold it for $5M in under a year, then became YC's first non-founder partner in 2010. He co-founded Initialized Capital with Garry Tan and Alexis Ohanian, co-founded technical hiring platform Triplebyte in 2015 (acquired by Karat in 2023), and returned to YC in 2020 as a Group Partner before becoming Managing Partner. He has advised over 1,000 companies across 17 YC batches and worked with more than 20 unicorns including Coinbase, Instacart, and Gusto.
Dean Meyer
Dean Meyer is a Partner at Sequoia Capital based in Tel Aviv, leading the firm's Israel operations. A former professional soccer player for AFC Ajax Amsterdam and Maccabi Tel Aviv, he pivoted from competitive sport to venture capital after studying computer science at Reichman University (IDC Herzliya). He joined Sequoia in March 2024 - shortly after October 7 - to double down on Israel's tech ecosystem at its most turbulent moment, backing technical founders in infrastructure, cloud, data, AI, and cybersecurity. His portfolio includes Decart (now valued at $3.1B), Eon, Irregular, and Kela.
Paul Swiencicki
Paul Swiencicki is a Growth Partner at Right Side Capital Management (RSCM), the quantitative pre-seed firm that has backed over 2,000 startups including Compass, ClassPass, and DigitalOcean. A four-time exit veteran and one-time founder, Paul spent 25+ years as a sales leader and growth executive at companies like SurfControl (IPO), WorkMetro (acquired), Remix, and Swiftly (acquired by JMI in 2020) before pivoting to investing. At RSCM, he advises portfolio companies on sales team building and revenue strategy, writing checks in the $50K-$200K range and working hands-on with founders at the very earliest stage.
Jenny Lee
Jenny Lee is a Singapore-born venture capitalist and co-founder of Granite Asia, formerly Senior Managing Partner at GGV Capital, where she spent nearly two decades building Asia's most formidable tech investment franchise. A Cornell-trained electrical engineer who bought out her government scholarship bond for S$300,000 to chase her VC calling, she has backed over 21 unicorns and facilitated 16 IPOs across five global stock exchanges, including early bets on Alibaba, Xiaomi, Didi, and Grab. The first woman ever to crack the top 10 of Forbes' Midas List, Lee now runs Granite Asia - a $5 billion multi-asset platform investing across Asia's next technology wave.
Josh Kushner
Josh Kushner is the founder and managing partner of Thrive Capital, a New York-based venture firm he started at age 24 with $5 million and has since grown to $50+ billion in AUM across 10 funds. He made one of the most consequential single bets in VC history by providing the only term sheet OpenAI received in 2022 at a $29 billion valuation. Co-founder of Oscar Health and Cadre, minority owner of the Miami Heat and San Francisco Giants, and husband of supermodel and media entrepreneur Karlie Kloss, Kushner operates from the Puck Building in Manhattan where his apartment and office share the same address. Known for his low-key demeanor, obsessive work ethic, and a hiring process that famously takes eight months.
Ron Conway
Ron Conway is the undisputed 'Godfather of Silicon Valley' - a San Francisco-born angel investor who backed Google, Facebook, Twitter, Airbnb, Stripe, OpenAI, and 650+ other companies through SV Angel, the firm he founded in 2009. Known as 'The Human Router' by Marc Andreessen for his legendary ability to connect founders with capital, talent, and opportunity, Conway pioneered seed-stage investing with small checks and high conviction in people, writing 1+ investments per week at his peak. A lifelong Democrat and civic power broker, philanthropist, and father of three sons who all work in his ecosystem, Conway announced a rare cancer diagnosis in April 2026 while vowing to never back down from a fight.
Tim Draper
Tim Draper is a third-generation venture capitalist and founder of Draper Associates, the firm behind early bets on Hotmail, Baidu, Skype, Tesla, Coinbase, and Robinhood. He pioneered viral marketing with Hotmail's email footer tagline, bought 30,000 bitcoins at a U.S. Marshals auction in 2014 for $19 million, and has never sold. The founder of Draper University of Heroes in San Mateo, he frames entrepreneurship as a heroic calling - handing students superhero capes on day one. Twice tried to split California into multiple states. Consistently predicts Bitcoin will hit $250,000. Sings his own original songs at startup conferences. Backed 60+ unicorns from seed stage across four decades.
Brian Singerman
Brian Singerman spent 16 years as a General Partner at Founders Fund - Peter Thiel's celebrated contrarian VC firm - backing SpaceX, Anduril, OpenAI, Stripe, and Scale AI before the world knew what they would become. He founded iGoogle at Google in 2005, built one of the first YC-focused investment vehicles (XGYC), and developed a reputation as one of the most conviction-driven investors of his generation. In late 2024, he transitioned to Partner Emeritus at Founders Fund, then co-founded GPx - a $500M debut fund with a structural twist on the VC model - with Lee Linden, backed significantly by Peter Thiel.
Chris Dixon
Chris Dixon is the founder and managing partner of a16z crypto, the largest dedicated crypto venture fund in the world with over $7 billion in committed capital. A Columbia philosophy graduate turned software engineer turned serial entrepreneur (SiteAdvisor, Hunch), he joined Andreessen Horowitz in 2012 and has since become Silicon Valley's most prominent crypto bull, leading investments in Coinbase, Uniswap, and dozens of foundational web3 companies. His 2018 essay 'Why Decentralization Matters' became a manifesto for the open internet movement, and his 2024 book 'Read Write Own' extended that thesis into a New York Times-listed blueprint for the next era of the internet.
Heidi Roizen
Heidi Roizen is one of Silicon Valley's most iconic figures — a serial entrepreneur who co-founded T/Maker in 1983, led Apple's Worldwide Developer Relations during a pivotal transition, and became a venture capitalist at Threshold Ventures. She is the subject of a landmark Harvard Business School case study on networking and the famous 'Heidi vs. Howard' gender bias experiment. Today she is a Partner at Threshold Ventures, a Stanford lecturer, board director at Planet Labs and Upside Foods, and host of 'The Startup Solution' podcast.
Joe Lonsdale
Joe Lonsdale is a serial entrepreneur and venture capitalist who co-founded Palantir Technologies, Addepar, OpenGov, and 8VC — a firm managing over $6 billion in assets. A chess prodigy turned PayPal intern turned Peter Thiel protege, Lonsdale built his empire around the belief that the most important companies are the ones governments and defense establishments can't function without. Based in Austin, Texas, he hosts the American Optimist podcast, co-founded the University of Austin, and runs the Cicero Institute — all while backing defense tech titans like Anduril at a $30.5 billion valuation.
Lorenzo Thione
Lorenzo Thione is a Tony Award-winning Broadway producer, AI pioneer, and venture capitalist who sold his search engine startup Powerset to Microsoft for $100 million in 2008. As Managing Director of Gaingels, he leads one of the world's largest LGBTQ+ venture syndicates with $1B+ deployed across 2,700+ portfolio companies. He founded StartOut, the largest LGBTQ+ entrepreneur network, and has produced acclaimed Broadway shows including Hadestown, The Inheritance, and Allegiance with George Takei. An Italian-born computer engineer turned operator-investor-activist, Thione builds what he calls a flywheel of queer economic empowerment by positioning diversity as a source of better returns.
Pat Grady
Pat Grady is co-steward of Sequoia Capital, one of Silicon Valley's most legendary venture capital firms. Since joining Sequoia in 2007 at age 24 as the youngest hire in the firm's history, he has led growth-stage investments in generational companies including OpenAI, ServiceNow, Snowflake, and Zoom - a portfolio exceeding $250 billion in combined market capitalization. A Wyoming native who worked as a roofer to pay for college, Grady now shapes the future of technology as co-leader of Sequoia alongside Alfred Lin, focusing heavily on AI and enterprise software innovation.
Ashton Kutcher
Ashton Kutcher is a venture capitalist, actor, and entrepreneur who transformed from sitcom star to one of Silicon Valley's most successful celebrity investors. As General Partner of Sound Ventures, he's built a $250M+ portfolio including Airbnb, Uber, Spotify, and Robinhood, with 35 exits and 7 unicorns. Beyond investing, he co-founded Thorn, a nonprofit using technology to combat child sexual exploitation, and has helped identify over 31,000 trafficking victims. From biochemical engineering student to Hollywood leading man to tech heavyweight, Kutcher represents a rare bridge between entertainment and venture capital.
Guy Oseary
Guy Oseary is an Israeli-American music manager, venture capitalist, and entrepreneur who has guided Madonna's career since 1992 and co-founded Sound Ventures with Ashton Kutcher - a $1B+ VC firm with early bets on Airbnb, Uber, Spotify, and now OpenAI and Anthropic. Once the teenage chairman of Madonna's Maverick Records who signed Alanis Morissette, Oseary has quietly become one of entertainment's most consequential dealmakers - turning a free internship offer into three decades of industry-defining moves at the intersection of music, tech, and culture.
Michael Moritz
Sir Michael Moritz is a Welsh-born billionaire venture capitalist who spent nearly four decades at Sequoia Capital turning early bets on Google, Yahoo, PayPal, YouTube, Stripe, and Klarna into some of the greatest returns in VC history. A former Time journalist who wrote one of the first books on Apple, he arrived at Sequoia in 1986 and never looked back - topping the Forbes Midas List in 2006 and 2007. Knighted in 2013, he departed Sequoia in July 2023 and remains chairman of Klarna. His Crankstart Foundation has donated hundreds of millions to Oxford, the National Gallery, the ACLU, and the Booker Prize. In 2026, the son of Jewish refugees who fled Nazi Germany applied for German citizenship - protesting the rise of antisemitism in Britain.
Nas
Nasir Jones - known simply as Nas - is one of hip-hop's most decorated lyricists, the Queensbridge-raised MC who turned a dropped-out eighth-grader's street poetry into Illmatic, a 1994 debut so precise it became a benchmark for the entire art form. Three decades later he's still dropping critically acclaimed records, co-founded Queensbridge Venture Partners (early Dropbox, Coinbase, Lyft, Robinhood), holds a Harvard-named fellowship, and released Light-Years with DJ Premier in late 2025. His pen never stopped; neither did his portfolio.
Reid Hoffman
Reid Hoffman co-founded LinkedIn, helped build PayPal, seeded Facebook, and has been quietly central to almost every major tech breakout of the last 25 years. A philosopher-turned-venture-capitalist who popularized 'blitzscaling,' he is now betting big on AI — co-founding Inflection AI, launching Manas AI for drug discovery, hosting two podcasts, and writing bestsellers with GPT-4 as co-author.
Minal Hasan
Minal Hasan is a Silicon Valley-born venture capitalist, ex-lawyer, and entrepreneur who co-founded K2 Global - one of the largest inaugural women-run VC funds in history at $183M - and now runs Cyphr VC, a solo-GP seed fund focused on fintech, cybersecurity, and regulated tech infrastructure. Raised inside boardrooms (literally), she parlayed a dual career in Big Law and product marketing into becoming one of Silicon Valley's sharpest early-stage investors, with a portfolio spanning Palantir, Spotify, Coinbase, Airbnb, and 8 unicorns.
Jamin Ball
Jamin Ball is a Partner at Altimeter Capital and the author of Clouded Judgement, a weekly Substack newsletter with 87,000+ subscribers that tracks SaaS valuations, cloud earnings, and operating metrics for founders and investors alike. A Stanford-trained engineer who went from tech investment banking (Morgan Stanley, BofA) to venture (Redpoint Ventures) to growth-stage investing at Altimeter, Ball has built board seats at Airbyte, Clickhouse, dbt Labs, LiveKit, and Prisma, and coined the 'Rule of X' framework widely cited across SaaS finance circles. His writing bridges public market data with private company decision-making, and his 2024 essay on VC misaligned incentives prompted Bill Gurley to call it 'potentially the single most important issue for the entire venture capital landscape.'