The VC Field Guide

Introduction

MY BACKGROUND

I still remember the state of the economy when I graduated. It was an important time for me. Interviewing for my first real job out of UC Berkeley felt like the culmination of all my education and life preparation—and at that point, the economy was a bloodbath.

I remember high‐achieving graduates having their prestigious offer letters rescinded after already proving themselves during summer internships. Brilliant people who could not find alternative options because employers had already made all their entry‐level hires. I remember record unemployment and so many students going back to live with their parents, jobless, and unsure how they were going to pay off their student debt. I saw how that experience turned my entire graduating class into risk‐averse working professionals pursuing careers in the highest‐paying, lowest‐risk, and tried‐and‐true jobs available out of college.

Meanwhile, I didn't have a home as a fallback. At that point I couldn't go back to my childhood home in Salt Lake City, Utah. Everyone I had lived with had moved away. My standard operating model was already to “figure it out.” I have lived without my parents since I was 5 as a first‐generation immigrant. I had a lifetime of being different and I had no idea what to call my experience until the pejorative term, “anchor baby” was popularized on the news.

For my graduating class, that highest‐paying tried‐and‐true job in business was investment banking. Only a small number of ...