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Ep. 9 Venture Capital and Tech, with John Cambier

Develomentor

English - October 21, 2019 11:00 - 41 minutes - 28.8 MB - ★★★★★ - 30 ratings
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Episode Summary

John Cambier joins us on today on Develomentor from Idea Fund Partners. John is the guy everyone is always asking for money. He represents a side of technology that is often behind the scenes, venture capital. Join us as John and Grant discuss venture capital and tech. Click here to browse different careers in tech.

In the early 90s John graduated from Michigan State University as a political science undergrad. He started his tech career in 1994 as the one non-technical person in a group of 13 engineers packaging semiconductors.  

John eventually decided to attend business school at the Kenan-Flagler Business School at UNC to get an MBA. He was also working full time while attending school and helped spin out three companies during that time. This was his first exposure to venture capital. 

After John got his MBA, his company assigned him to assemble a team for early seed investing in tech companies. This became the nonprofit MCNC and John hired a few MBA grads from UNC to help him run the 15 million dollar investment fund. In 2007 Idea Fund Partners was born and became a major investor in MCNC. To this day, Idea Fund has backed 44 different companies. 

Key Milestones

[1:01] Who is John Cambier?
[10:27] Going back to school while working full time
[13:48] About venture capital and tech
[16:02] Importance of network
[19:22] How jobs differ at small companies versus larger companies
[21:20] What kind of influence does venture capital have
[24:26] What surprised John most about venture capital
[27:04] Being able to read people and communicate
[31:17] Going out and finding investing partners
[34:41] What to look for when starting out in venture capital
[38:58] Advice for those just starting out

For full episode show notes click here

CONNECT WITH JOHN CAMBIER HERE
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CONNECT WITH GRANT INGERSOLL HERE
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