Mission Driven - Episode 6 - Marc Tarpenning (Tesla and Spero Ventures)

Marc Tarpenning is the Co-founder of Tesla and a Venture Partner at Spero Ventures. He was one of the original co-founders of Tesla back in 2003 and shares with us the origin story of Tesla as a mission-driven company, and how that mission was a competitive advantage. Spero Ventures invests in early-stage technology companies solving critical problems in: well-being, work & purpose and human connection. Marc brings his passion for climate sustainability to Spero and focuses on their sustainability-related investments such as Drone Seed, Clarity, and Tortuga AgTech.

In This Episode We Talk About:

The inside story of how Tesla got started and what motivated Marc and Martin Eberhard to tackle such a massive challenge.
How Tesla's mission helped them hire top talent, gain buy-in from customers, and raise funding.
How Tesla balanced enticing lucrative early opportunities and sticking to their core mission.
The rationale for Marc's shift to working in VC and why he chose Spero Ventures.
The areas Marc is most excited about investing in.

Mentioned in This Episode:

Other early investors in Tesla: DBL 

Spero Ventures: Website, Twitter @SperoVentures

Marc's Recent Investment at Spero: DroneSeed

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