Fundamentally, you need to be passionate about an idea, market or team before starting any business.

There truly is no typical career path in venture capital anymore. VC was once a cottage industry that sprung up from executives at leading companies like Fairchild Semiconductor. Then for a number of years, many of the best VCs like John Doerr, Jim Breyer, and Peter Wagner usually attended Stanford or Harvard for undergraduate and…

“Some of the coolest companies are ones where the technology is not rocket science, it’s really well understood in one technology industry, and then you sort of borrow it and you marry it with a market that’s just never seen anything like it before,”

“As a former founder, operator, and executive from startup creation through IPO, I deeply understand and appreciate all of the ups and downs along the entrepreneurial journey,” Rothenberg wrote on Defy’s website.

Early-stage investor Defy Partners, which recently raised $262 million for its second fund, has tapped former Eventbrite exec Brian Rothenberg as a partner. He joins Co-Founders and Managing Directors Neil Sequeira and Trae Vassallo, who launched the firm in late 2017.