Decoding Disruptors: Theresia Gouw, Founding Partner at Acrew Capital

Michael Gervais (0:09)

Okay, welcome to Decoding Disruptors, a special edition of the Finding Mastery podcast. And it's presented without interruption by Microsoft. And so Microsoft has radically transformed under the CEO Satya Nadella. And with his emphasis on building a culture around mindset, inclusion and diversity, and the mission to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more, it's radical what they've done. I mean, radical. And this organization, I've had an upfront view of them for the last handful of years with Compete to Create. They're an organization that truly cares about people and the psychological skills that they need to flourish. And I couldn't be more excited to partner with Microsoft in bringing this series to life. Okay, so Decoding Disruptors, what we're doing here is we're taking a deep dive into the minds of extraordinary women who have disrupted the narrative in their businesses, their industries, their communities.

And it starts with how they disrupt the narrative within. And I had the chance to interview nine amazing women for the series. All the conversations were filmed and they're available at decodingdisruptors.com. We've organized the clips so that you can jump straight to the mindset skills that you're most interested in, like clips from the nine women on confidence and purpose and mindfulness. And I just love how this project pulled together, the Finding Mastery approach to celebrate and understand the genius of these women, how eloquently it fits with Microsoft's culture and their mission and how Compete to Create is able to distill the mindset principles. And then we've also showed you how to put them into action so that you can train them.

I just, I love the spirit of this project. So this conversation is with Theresia Gouw, a founder and partner at Acrew Capital and one of the most successful venture capitalists in the world. During her career, Theresia has helped finance and support some of the most successful companies of our time, being an early investor in Facebook. How about it? Hotel Tonight, Trulia and Impervia among others. And Time Magazine named her one of the 40 most influential minds in tech.

Equally impressive is that Theresia helped break the gender barrier in Silicon Valley. She was often the only woman in the room when she arrived in America's tech capital. And her focus on the elements she could control, like preparation and hard work and her ability to gracefully reframe situations were some of the keys to shifting the gender narrative inside the industry. And with that, let's jump right into this Decoding Disruptors episode with Theresia Gouw.

Theresia, how are you?

Theresia Gouw (3:09)

It's great to meet you. Thanks for having me.

Michael Gervais (3:11)

Oh, I'm excited for this. I'm really excited to understand how you have shaped the narrative of Silicon Valley.

And so before we get into the psychology of how you've done that, can you give a context and some understanding of how venture capital works in our world?

Theresia Gouw (3:29)

Sure, so venture capital is, as the name sounds, it is investing, but it's also really being, I think, the business growth and business development partner for founders, for entrepreneurs. So in the tech space specifically, where I focus is at the very, very first investor, so what we call the Series A.

And it's interesting because actually in this room that we're sitting in right now, which happens to be my office currently for my venture fund, but this was the room where myself and a couple of my partners walked down the street to give Mark Zuckerberg his Series A term sheet. So maybe that's a perfect example of what is venture capital. So Facebook, a company probably people have heard of before, but by the way, I'll go into how it's also relevant to the broader economy. So we invest in entrepreneurs who are looking for both capital and board members to help them grow and shape their companies at the very earliest stages. Hopefully some of the ones that are very successful, like Microsoft and Facebook and Google end up becoming large public companies.

And that's essentially what we do when we stay on their boards for five, 10, however many years until they get to that point where they become public companies.

Michael Gervais (4:37)

Okay, so there's an ambitious part about making money. That's part of the business world. And you've also got something else that really sets you apart from many VC funds.

And so can you walk through your unique position in the VC world?

Theresia Gouw (4:50)

Yeah, so for me, I hope and I think it's making money for our investors of course is the goal because we take money from university endowments and foundations and invest in these companies with the promise to give them a return. So of course that's important. But for me, the real reason to do it, and I think for all great entrepreneurs is because we want to help them build something that we think is going to make impact in the world.