Who you are defines how you build.

This is the Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders series.

Brought to you by Stanford E-Corner.

On today's episode, we have Emily Melton, a partner at the venture capital firm, DFJ.

Emily has spent her career focusing on early stage startups that are looking to make positive change in the world.

Here's Emily.

Thank you guys so much for having me here this afternoon.

I want to say it's honored, but I think the right way of phrasing is humble. I'm very humble to be here.

I was in your chairs, well, you're proverbial chairs.

I did not have nearly as nice of buildings when I came here 20 years ago.

And I was trying to think when I was asked to do this speech, I got the email.

And my first thought was, that seems like a lot of work.

I'm really busy this fall.

How do I get out of it?

Stress, I don't really have anything that relevant

or interesting to say.

And as soon as I started to think about how I could make up an excuse,

my computer dinged, and there was a note from Heidi Roizen,

who's here supporting me in the audience, which literally said,

you must do this. And so I realized there was no way I was getting out of it. So I had to be here

today and do this presentation. And then I started the daunting task of thinking, what do I want to say?

What would I have wanted to hear when I was sitting in your seats two decades ago, what would have been useful? And this time I was actually on a vacation, and this is a

...