Episode 102: Early-Stage Investing, Modern Venture Capital, and Trends in Enterprise Infrastructure with Astasia Myers

Show Notes(01:56) Astasia shared her childhood growing up in Silicon Valley.(05:12) Astasia reflected on her undergraduate education at Stanford - studying Political Science and International Relations.(06:35) Astasia discussed her research at the Graduate Business School with Professor Condoleezza Rice on a case study called "San Leon Energy: Hydraulic Fracturing in Poland" - which explores how to manage the political risks of using a controversial energy extraction technology in the European Union.(09:26) Astasia talked about her year in the UK getting a Master's in Technology Policy at the University of Cambridge's Judge Business School.(12:52) Astasia recalled her experience as an Equity Research Analyst at Baird and Co.(17:49) Astasia mentioned her work at Cisco Investments, driving their cloud-infrastructure M&A and venture investments.(20:58) Astasia shared her thoughts on different M&A frameworks she learned from Cisco.(23:27) Astasia reflected on her decision to join Redpoint Ventures in early 2017, leading investments across developer tools, cloud infrastructure, data/ML infrastructure, AI applications, and cybersecurity.(25:44) Astasia debunked misconceptions about the venture industry.(29:30) Astasia discussed ways to prove her value upfront in potential deals and start forming her investment theses as a new investor.(33:01) Astasia dissected the key factors that triggered her to invest in the Series A of Solo.io and the Series B of LaunchDarkly (in the domain of cloud infrastructure).(38:48) Astasia explained her Series A investment in Hex and Series B investment in Preset (in the domain of data infrastructure).(44:12) Astasia shared advice she had given her portfolio companies in hiring decisions, pricing products, and navigating go-to-market strategy while at Redpoint.(47:36) Astasia walked through her process of writing comprehensive research primers in her Medium blog Memory Leak on wide-ranging topics - from data science notebooks and data orchestration to data pipelining and ML data management.(51:19) Astasia shared the typical challenges she has seen in companies looking to incorporate Product-Led Growth into their go-to-market motion.(54:10) Astasia discussed building a community as a fuel for product-led growth and shared advice to startups thinking about starting their community initiatives.(56:40) Astasia shared advice for hiring good DevRel practitioners.(01:00:15) Astasia shared advice for a smart, driven operator who wants to explore angel investing.(01:03:26) Astasia talked about her current journey as the Founding Partner at Quiet Capital, sitting on its early-stage enterprise team and leading opportunities across pre-seed, seed, Series A, and Series B.(01:05:13) Astasia expanded upon her typical mental checklist to evaluate entrepreneurs and make investment decisions.(01:07:36) Astasia briefly touched on LP fundraising for Quiet Capital to become a "modern venture firm."(01:09:59) Astasia emphasized her enthusiasm for the Data-Centric ML movement.(01:13:41) Closing segment.Astasia's Contact InfoLinkedInMediumTwitterQuiet CapitalWebsiteLinkedInTwitterMentioned ResourcesContentJohn Gannon BlogPeopleSatish Dharmaraj (Redpoint Ventures)Scott Raney (Redpoint Ventures)Amanda Robson (Cowboy Ventures)Notes

My conversation with Astasia was recorded back in April 2022. Since then, many things have happened. I'd recommend:

Datacast features long-form, in-depth conversations with practitioners and researchers in the data community to walk through their professional journeys and unpack the lessons learned along the way. I invite guests coming from a wide range of career paths — from scientists and analysts to founders and investors — to analyze the case for using data in the real world and extract their mental models (“the WHY and the HOW”) behind their pursuits. Hopefully, these conversations can serve as valuable tools for early-stage data professionals as they navigate their own careers in the exciting data universe.

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