Path to Conviction: Lior Susan, Eclipse Ventures Founding Partner on Using Conviction for Unanimous Votes

**Jeff Harbach** (0:02)
My name is Jeff Harbach. I'm the CEO of Kauffman Fellows and the host of the Kauffman Fellows Podcast. This season, our podcast is produced in partnership with Mighty Capital and features different Kauffman Fellows as co-hosts. In this podcast, we dive deep into the personal narratives of some of the most successful names in the venture capital industry. But we're not here just to explore their highlight reels, however impressive they are.
From failures and formative learning experiences to inflection points and aha moments, we discuss the real, authentic journeys that each individual goes through to become the best version of themselves in order to best serve the entrepreneurs they invest in. Covering various themes in venture capital investing, we speak with the world's top leaders in capital formation, all from a place of authenticity and vulnerability. Together, we'll unravel what truly makes a great venture capital investor.
Now let's meet today's host and their guest.

**Renana Ashkenazi** (0:48)
Hi and good morning, good afternoon or good evening, depending on where you are in the world.
I'm Renana Ashkenazi from Grove Ventures, and I'm excited to host this series on winning the deal, the before and the after. Let's hear from my guest today. Our general topic is winning the deal, right? What happens before and mainly, how do you reach conviction?
And what happens after? How do you make sure that you're actually bringing value to the table? But let's start with what's really interesting, okay? So how does a kibbutz boy end up in Silicon Valley?

**Lior Susan** (1:22)
You know, that, I'm still thinking about that answer, and you know, it's been now 10 years. And yeah, you know, I definitely don't have the old traditional, conviction background of being an 8200, and then go to the Technion, then go to do an MBA in Stanford, and finding myself as an associate in one of the VC fair, and one day becoming a partner, basically just describe most of Israelis. But no, I definitely had a different type of a background. I think, you know, when I'm in a serious way, when I'm asking myself, like, how it can be that the Kibbutz boy is now doing venture in Silicon Valley is I think from youth, I like to build.
And I'm just a passionate person when it's coming to building, and it can come in different forms, in the form of a Kibbutz and a form of venture.
And I think venture capital can be a perfect platform to build that scale. And it's kind of very non-selfish, meaning you don't build one house. You're kind of a general contractor, right? You can build 10 houses in parallel. That I found that for me, I'm even more enjoying that than building a one house.

**Renana Ashkenazi** (2:36)
I love the metaphor. We didn't even introduce you.
So you're the founding partner of Eclipse. Can you tell us a few words about the thesis behind Eclipse and the current strategy of the fund? Sounds good.

**Lior Susan** (2:51)
Yeah, thanks.
So I started the firm in 2015 in the back of three years being at Flextronics. Flex is the second larger electronic manufacturing company in the world. And I worked over there for Mike McNamara, the CEO, that today is one of my partners at Eclipse.

**Renana Ashkenazi** (3:10)
Yeah, we're going to talk about that.

**Lior Susan** (3:12)
Yeah, we did switch jobs. Now he reports to me. And you know, Flex, because I got the thesis of Eclipse in Flex, so Flex, it's almost like this microcosmos of the world GDP. So it's a 12 segments, everything from automotive, aerospace and defense, networking, industrial, energy, communication, consumer electronics, medical, and each of those segments, they will do more than a billion dollar in revenue.
And one of my jobs of kind of thinking on which type of a digital tools Flex should build internally was to be with Mike in the corporate jet, bouncing between the customers of Flex, not a bit of a trick. And I will be amazed to meet the CEO, COO of Johnson & Johnson, because we'll build the insulin pump for them. And then the day after with Ford Motors, because we'll build their infotainment center in the car, and to hear from both of them the identical same message. And the message was, technology is coming to change our industry. We are the incumbents. And it's going to be this mishmash of computer vision and AI and semiconductor and IoT. They didn't really know what they're saying. They were just buzzwords on the technology. And we need you, Flex, as our manufacturing partners to help us source faster those technologies.
So I will take that.