During a break of the USF Business Plan Competition, a couple of students grabbed David Epstein - one of the judges for the competition. David is a general partner at Crosslink Capital and in this episode he talks about his experience funding new ventures and gives his confidence about the future of the entrepreneurial environment within the Bay Area (1 to 5 scale). For a transcript of the full interview click here.
Epstein.mp3 (6MB / 12m)
This week we had a visit from Kevin Fong one of the managing directors at Mayfield Fund, a venture capital firm with more than 2.7 billion dollars under management and previous investments in companies like Compaq, Genentech, Snapfish and Sandisk. In this presentation, Kevin talks about how User Generated Content (UGC) is changing traditional business models and why Silicon Valley is no longer the center of the technology world. Also, find out who makes more money: YouTube, Facebook or MySpace and why TiVo has not been the success that everyone expected.
KevinFong.mp3 (10MB / 22m)
This is an interview with Joe Mandato - Managing Director with the venture capital firm De Novo Ventures. Prior to becoming a VC, Joe had several roles as a CEO and he was the first board member of Invisalign, the company that invented the invisible braces. Our talk focused on his experience as a VC and on some of the successful companies that DeNovo has funded. We also discussed briefly the USF International Business Plan Competition and how he got involved with our MBA Program.
Mandato.mp3 (9MB / 20m)