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Ron Conway

Ron Conway80 posts

Ron Conway is an American investor and venture capitalist born in San Francisco in 1951. He has invested in at least 650 startups via his fund, SV Angel. He is involved in politics, advocating immigration reform and efforts by the Silicon Valley tech industry to pursue policy objectives. He worked for National Semiconductor, Altos Computer Systems, and Personal Training Systems. He is renowned for extensive networking, including involving Arnold Schwarzenegger, Shaquille O’Neal, Henry Kissinger, and Ashton Kutcher in tech investment, among others. He previously contributed to companies in the Y Combinator startup seed program. He is married and has three sons.

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Oct 2014

Conway at Startup School 2014

Interview3 Comments

Graham interviews Conway for the Y Combinator event. He says founders must have a dedicated work ethic, get along with their co-founder, and not be afraid to make changes like laying off people who aren’t performing. Conway:

You can’t learn to be ambitious and driven.

Ron Conway at Startup School SV 2014

2013

Conway at Startup School 2013

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Livingston interviews Conway about his investments, and what he thinks is the future of social apps. Conway:

I don’t know because I’m not a founder, but I’m sure people out there [in the audience] have ideas on what is the next social app, because social apps are changing the way people communicate

Ron Conway at Startup School 2013

Oct 2013

Startup School 2013

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Graham interviews Conway about what has changed in tech. Conway:

What’s not changed…is you have to have determination, and conviction. You have to be a leader.

He says that in the Altos days, workplaces were less formal, for instance the employees would drink to motivate themselves to stay until 9 p.m.

I think the startups today know how to segment a little better

His assessment is that software companies have to deliver:

What’s not changed is the fact that you have to focus on growth. Back in the hardware days you didn’t have to focus on product or consumer satisfaction as much…Customers were happy just to get it

Ron Conway at Startup School 2012

12 Sep, 2013

Interview about NSA

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Arrington and Conway discuss the NSA at Disrupt 2013. Arrington talks about issues like seizing encrypted data and hacking phones:

We see what is happening with the NSA, the NSA is strong-arming these companies that are part of our ecosystem…why have you sat by for six months and not done a thing to stop this?

Conway:

I absolutely agree that we have to balance national security, there was this thing called 9/11, the government’s responsibility is to protect… You have to balance that with responsibility… Obviously the events of the last 60 days with the NSAs says that there has to be a balance between national security and transparency.

He says there is a healthy debate and he is focusing on other issues – civic engagement, gun control, and immigration reform:

I’m probably not going to be the tech leader who heads that…right now immigration reform to me is probably more important

Ron Conway Discusses the NSA | Disrupt SF 2013

2013

Disrupt 2013 interview

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Arrington interviews Conway, Lee, and Pokorny about where the innovations are in tech.

Lee:

I would actually say in the last 12-18 months ideas are bigger, bolder, more ambitious…

Those include things like drone companies, and scientific research.

Conway:

We just in the last six months have [identified] two new target sectors to invest…education and the internet of things

He says the company is looking at ‘hardware devices communicating constantly with the web’, and says SV Angel is ‘defining’ the new sector of health informatics.

Lee:

The basic idea is if you think about the explosion of genomic medical information, all the medical data that is now being digitized…I think there’s now a chance to turn biology itself into a [tech sector]

Pokorny:

I’m still bullish on consumer innovation

SV Angel | Disrupt NY 2013 Fireside Chat

30 Apr, 2013

Downloaded interview

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Conway and Winter are interviewed by Siegler at a Tech Crunch event about the Napster documentary. Conway talks about his efforts to sort out the company’s legal problems:

Technically speaking it’s still not solved…Today we have all the sharing economy companies, like ride sharing and AirbnB, and all the local authorities are acting like the record labels. You can’t stop innovation, and it amazes me that people still don’t know that.

Downloaded with Ron Conway and Alex Winter | Disrupt NY 2013

2012

Disrupt NY interview

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Arrington interviews Conway and Lee at the event. Conway says he is an executive investor in SV Angel and Lee is managing the fund.

But I have a huge vested interest…I get to come in and help entrepreneurs, I get to do what I enjoy

Lee responds to Arrington’s question over rumors the fund is looking to raise $400 million, saying it is looking at investment, but declines to give details:

We are exploring all options

23 Mar, 2012

Bloomberg interview

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Conway talks about valuations:

Right now…a typical startup is in the $3 million-$5 million range

He says valuations are creeping up to around $6 million-$7 million range but are not overvalued, and M&A is still a ‘great exit opportunity’ for the startups as Google, Microsoft and even Apple are making acquisitions.

In the next year probably 10-15% of the portfolio will get acquired

On privacy issues:

Consumers are getting used to a more open environment on the internet so the privacy issues are really a moving target…Twitter, Facebook, Google are very sensitive to the privacy issues

He says hundreds of millions of social feeds show consumers aren’t backing away.

Ron Conway Says Startup Valuations Are `Creeping Up': Video

16 Feb, 2012

Tech Crunch interview

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Conway talks with Arrington at the Tech Crunch office to talk about trends in the tech industry.

There’s two big trends that we see that are going to become billion dollar industries, one of them is real-time data which would be Twitter and what we call the real-time ecosystem, which is really any company that employs crowd-sourcing or collective wisdom to create this new corpus of real-time data on the web, which is the most valuable data on the web.

He says Foursquare and Quora are also examples of real-time data, and clarifies SV Angel isn’t invested in Quora. Growth in Facebook and Twitter alone is enough to confirm a second trend:

The other mega-trend is that the web is becoming more social…the phenomenon is that consumers are willing to share more about themselves…this phenomenon is growing to create huge commerce opportunities on the web

Ron Conway on SV Angel

2010

Stanford interview

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Conway gives an on-stage interview for the Graduate School of Business. Among other topics, he talks about spotting Google early on:

Investors didn’t get it, they said isn’t this like the rest of them? And we said, No, this is relevant, it gives relevant results

On succeeding in tech as a non-technical person:

Every step of the way, because I’m not an engineer, I’ve always made sure for every fund there’s a very technical person we can turn to…If you’re not technical you can be [the business] person

Interview with Ron Conway

 

9 Jan, 2009

Cloud computing interview

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Conway talks to Ideas Project about cloud computing:

Probably the most disruptive technology that’s just starting to blossom today

He says things like Google Apps allowing MS Office to run in the cloud were talked about for decades:

Now you have storage in the cloud, so the notion of all you need, a computer that has conductivity to a browser, that’s really all you need…we were talking about this for 20 years and literally with the advent of Google apps and storage in the ether it’s become a reality

Ron Conway on Cloud Computing: Extended Interview

29 May, 2008

Stanford interview

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Conway says Silicon Valley’s ecosystem of lawyers, bankers, attorneys and investors means no other location can match it:

Not even close

Ron Conway: Silicon Valley: Ground Zero for The Deal