In the 76th episode of Burning Platform, we host Brad Feld of Foundry Group, a repeat guest and discuss the new book he has co-authored, Startup Boards and a whole slew of other tech industry topics
As Brad explains, the book is written in laypersons rather than in technical legal language. “What we tried to do with this book was bring out how startup boards work, and make them productive and accessible to CEOs, to existing and to prospective board members.”
The biggest change in this edition - the first was published in 2013: “we had about 20 sidebars, from people who wrote stories of their own board experiences…of those 20, only two were women. So we refactored that and this one has 10 women. For men, we carefully chose a bunch of new contemporary voices and have a few people of color in the mix as well. So it wasn't all just middle aged, white guys prognosticating about how boards work.”
We drift to an area Brad is always fascinating to listen to. How startups themselves keep evolving – location wise, focus/category wise, how they are capitalizing given the current state of financial markets.
Re categories he talks about “deep tech” and covers space tech, quantum computing and bio-engineering. “It is a truism that tech today is woven into every industry.”
We also talk about cleantech and EVs of course that brings up China. He also has an interesting perspective on reshoring and other global trends.
We talk about the joys and pains of writing books, how second editions allow you to see the world from a different lens. He invokes Jeff Lawson of Twilio and Steve Case of Revolution among others
Fascinating 40 minute session. Also get a copy of the book here. It a practitioner’s guide to startups from someone who has seen them from every possible angle.
