Planning and Executing Founder Succession

At our recent LP Conference, Illana Stern sat down with a group of Peterson Venture portfolio CEOs to discuss how they are using AI in their businesses today. You’ll hear from Caleb Hicks, CEO of SchoolAI, Stephanie Grayson, co-CEO of Cambio, Josh Wilson, CEO of Particl, Kyle Roche, CEO of Griptape, and Loren Larsen, CEO of Videra Health. Note: No compensation was provided to the portfolio company executives for their feedback although they may have an incentive to make a positive statement due to the executive’s ongoing relationship with the firm.

Ben Capell is joined by Co-founder and CEO of Rose Park Advisors, Matt Christensen, to discuss applying the theory of disruptive innovation. Matt co-founded Rose Park with his father, Clay Christensen, who coined the term and the concept of disruptive innovation. This concept has been applied by both early stage companies looking to disrupt incumbents, and Fortune 500 companies looking to avoid being disrupted. We hope you enjoy this conversation. 

Solidcore CEO Bryan Myers joins Brett Stohlton to discuss how to plan and execute a successful leadership transition from founder to next-generation CEO. Additionally, we explore leadership in the midst of crisis and learn about Bryan’s inspiring background and vision for Solidcore.

Erica Brescia, Managing Director at Repoint Ventures, joins Taylor Jones to discuss a wide range of topics including her career as an operator, founder and investor as well as her unique perspective on AI. Prior to Redpoint, Erica was the co-founder and COO of Bitnami and also served as the COO of GitHub. We hope you enjoy this episode. 

Founder and CEO of SaxeCap Amrit Saxena joins Dan Hanks. SaxeCap is an AI transformation and investing holding company that partners with PE funds to buy out and transform companies with AI and automation technology. Amrit is a Stanford-educated artificial intelligence entrepreneur, has sold two enterprise AI companies before founding SaxeCap, and has invested in 200-plus technology startups over the past decade. We hope you enjoy this episode. 

Our guests are John Erck and James Van Erck, founders of Rebuy, a personalization platform that enables e-commerce brands to deploy intelligent shopping experiences for consumers. We discuss how they were able to bootstrap Rebuy to meaningful revenue, why they decided to raise venture capital, and how they continued to scale revenue efficiently while burning very little capital. We hope you enjoy this conversation with the founders of Rebuy.   

Our topic in this episode is focused on inflation and the US economy, with special guest John Cochran, an economist and Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. Previously, John was a professor of finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. John writes occasional op-eds for the Wall Street Journal and blogs as the Grumpy Economist at johncochrane.com, and he recently created a Coursera outline course called Asset Pricing, covering first year PhD asset pricing. He has a new book out this month entitled “The Fiscal Theory of the Price Level.” We hope you enjoy our conversation. 

Our guest is Jorge Mazal, former Chief Product Officer at Duolingo, the most downloaded education app in the world. Jorge has also been a product manager at iconic internet companies Zynga and MyFitnessPal. We discuss his lessons from each company, how he built and scaled his product at Duolingo, and his insights into the craft of product management. We hope you enjoy this episode. 

Our guest today is David Lockwood, author of Fooled by the Winners. David has three decades of experience as a senior executive on Wall Street and in Silicon Valley. He has served on more than 20 public and private company boards and led several large companies as CEO and chairman. In this episode, David and Clint Peterson discuss turnarounds and the theme of his latest book, survivorship bias. David is a former lecturer on the faculty of the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University, and he has been an advisor to the highest levels of the U.S. government. David currently lives in Utah with his family.The portfolio companies identified and described herein do not represent all of the portfolio companies purchased, sold or recommended for funds advised by Peterson Partners. The reader should not assume that an investment in the portfolio companies identified was or will be profitable. Any opinions, projections, forecasts and estimates contained in this production are necessarily speculative in nature, are based upon certain assumptions, and subject to change without notice. It can be expected that some or all of such assumptions will not materialize or will vary significantly from actual results. This production is not an offer to buy or sell any investments. Past performance is not indicative of future results.

Our topic in this episode is, “The Future of Education,” and our guest is Factor CEO and Founder, Caleb Hicks. Factor helps teens explore potential career paths and allows them to begin professional experiences while still in high school. Caleb is the former co-founder at Lambda School and pioneered the innovative income share agreement. Recorded from a recent Peterson Ventures event, Caleb and Taylor Jones discuss why the traditional college path isn’t right for everyone and what compelled Caleb to start Factor. They discuss the challenge of leaving a scaling business to start Factor from scratch, and what the future of education looks like. We hope you enjoy this conversation with Caleb Hicks.The portfolio companies identified and described herein do not represent all of the portfolio companies purchased, sold or recommended for funds advised by Peterson Partners. The reader should not assume that an investment in the portfolio companies identified was or will be profitable. Any opinions, projections, forecasts and estimates contained in this production are necessarily speculative in nature, are based upon certain assumptions, and subject to change without notice. It can be expected that some or all of such assumptions will not materialize or will vary significantly from actual results. This production is not an offer to buy or sell any investments. Past performance is not indicative of future results.