Leaving Kleiner Perkins to Start Defy Partners, The State of Venture in the Bay Area, and Maintaining a Beginner’s Mind (Trae Vassallo)

Four years after inception, Defy continues team expansion and portfolio growth

In this episode we hear from Brian Rothenberg, Partner at Defy VC. He shares how Eventbrite’s growth model created a viral loop that led to massive success, how to go about building a distribution advantage and the biggest pitfalls of people who haven’t done this and how founders can go from siloed to a cross…

In this episode we discuss Trae’s path to Kleiner Perkins, and her experiences being one of relatively few female venture capital partners in Silicon Valley. She contrasts the treatment of women in Silicon Valley before, and after, Ellen Pao’s lawsuit (Check out Episode 101).  We discuss why she struck out on her own rather than staying…

I recently met Brian Rothenberg, a former Eventbrite exec who joined Defy Partners earlier this year. He’ll work as a partner alongside co-founders and Managing Directors Neil Sequeira and Trae Vassallo, who launched the rm in late 2017.