(0:00 ) Intro

(1:36 ) About the podcast sponsor: The American College of Governance Counsel

(2:23 ) Start of interview

(3:11 ) Brad's origin story

(4:54 ) Venture Capital Beginnings

(5:39 ) The Rise of the Internet

(8:10 ) His role in Softbank Technology Ventures and later Mobius Venture Capital. Reference to Heidi Roizen E6, E108 and E116

(12:26 ) Transition to Techstars and Foundry

(13:36 ) Origin and focus of his book Startup Boards. Reference to his blog post: Feld Thoughts. "Boards (and board members) for private companies operate on a bell curve" (some are excellent, some are horrific, and most are average).

(15:31 ) The Evolution of Founder-Friendly Terms

(30:06 ) Effective Board Composition

(35:00 ) Defining a Great Board: the Board as a Team. Reference to Matt Blumberg's Rule of 1s: see E52 (2022)

(38:05 ) "The goal of the board is to get different skill sets around the table" "I think a founder should fight against investors having additional observer seats."

(41:13 ) Why he considers it a red flag when a director claims they're acting out of "fiduciary duty." *Reference to the Startup Litigation Digest

(44:50 ) Governance concerns in the AI Boom

(47:37 ) Books that have greatly influenced his life:

1. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig (1974)
2. The entire pantheon of Neal Stephenson and William Gibson 
3. Science fiction written by female writers (as a category)
4. Hyperion Cantos by Dan Simmons

(50:05 ) His mentors: Len Fassler and his uncle, Charlie Feld.

(51:55 ) Quotes that he thinks of often or lives his life by: from his Dad: "If you're not standing on the edge, you're taking up too much space.", from Len: "Brad, they can't kill you and they can't eat you. Suit up."

(53:00 ) An unusual habit or an absurd thing that he loves. "I love philanthropically funding bathrooms." Also, the Banana Lounge at MIT.

(55:38 ) The living person he most admires: his wife Amy Batchelor.

Brad Feld has been an early-stage investor and entrepreneur since 1987. He co-founded two venture capital firms, Foundry Group and Mobius Venture Capital, and multiple companies, including Techstars. 

You can follow Evan on social media at:

X: @evanepstein

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/epsteinevan/ 

Substack: https://evanepstein.substack.com/

__

To support this podcast you can join as a subscriber of the Boardroom Governance Newsletter at https://evanepstein.substack.com/

__

Music/Soundtrack (found via Free Music Archive): Seeing The Future by Dexter Britain is licensed under a Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License