Who you are defines how you build.

This is the Entrepreneural Thought Leaders series.

Brought you by Stanford E. Corner.

On this episode, we're joined by Ravi Matra.

In 1999, Rovey founded Lightspeed Venture Partners, a VC firm that focuses on enterprise IT, mobile, and internet and cloud-based services and applications, and is also invested in consumer businesses like Cheddar and Stitch Fix.

Welcome everybody to the next installment of the entrepreneurial thought leader seminar from Stanford.

I'm Ravi Bologna, a lecturer in Stanford's Department of Management, Science, and Engineering, and the director of alchemists and an accelerator for enterprise startups.

And so we are incredibly honored today to welcome Ravi Machra.

I would love to kick things off by, you know, I think venture capital is this glorified

and romantic job that is oftentimes shrouded in mystery that many people wonder about.

And I wonder if we could just kick things off by you just describing what a day is like

really for a venture, for you as a venture capitalist. What is a typical day

if there is a typical day? Yeah, hi. It's a, it's a great question. And I think, you know,

for anyone in the audience who's curious about venture capital, I would encourage you to

ask as many people in the investing business as you can to create a sort of a collage or an image of what it is.

Because each day really is quite different.

When you are in the venture capital business for long enough, you have a variety of responsibilities to the entrepreneurs who you've already backed.

You're meeting with new prospective

founders. You're spending, you know, particularly in a bigger firm, a lot of time supporting your

partners who may be looking at new companies and meeting with new founders. You're also thinking

about where new market opportunities are. And so each of those is a different discipline.

And when you really, you know, I went back and looked at my calendar

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