Hi, everyone, welcome to the A6 and Z podcast. Today's episode is all about mentors and mentees.

The discussion takes place between A6 and Z co-founder Ben Horowitz and his mentor, Ken Coleman,

who started his career at HP and then Activision, was later chairman of accelerus and is on multiple other boards,

and held several executive positions at Silicon Graphics in between.

It's based on a Q&A that took place at an event we hosted in May 2018, and the discussion

is moderated by Michelle Feister, herself a mentee of Benz. She was formerly at HP and then APDio,

and is now the CEO and co-founder of UserMind. You can also hear her insights on creating a

category from pricing to

positioning in a previous episode, which you can find at A6.Z.com slash podcasts. But today's

episode covers everything about mentors and mentees, from how to break into a particular industry

or company, to how to help up-and-comers of all backgrounds, to the most annoying and best things between mentors

and mentees. But the conversation begins with how they found each other. Ben, how did you and Ken meet?

I love to hear that one. That's an interesting story. So my father, who had, I grew up in Berkeley,

my father was like a, I don't know how to describe him,

like a political rabble-rouser intellectual kind of thing.

But no, like, connection to corporate America.

My mom was a nurse, and, you know, I'm trying to get a job coming out of school.

And so, you know, I asked my, you know, did he know anybody who, like, worked in technology?

And he said, well, you know, I was at this yoga class.

And one of the women at yoga class, she's married to this guy who runs a tech company.

And the woman was Sange McCracken, and the was Ed McCracken and the company with Silicon Graphics.

He got Sanja to ask Ed if he would look at me as a summer intern.

...