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5.0 Mike Speiser and Sam Pullara
Fund: Sutter Hill Ventures
Posted by jkaplan on 2012-11-27
A friend with no VC experience asked me to attend her initial pitch to SHV.
We first met with Mike Speiser for over an hour, then he introduced us to Sam Pullara, who basically met with us separately for another hour. Both of them were thoughtful, respectful, wicked smart, engaged, supportive, and extremely helpful.
They each approached the discussion from the standpoint of how the entrepreneur could maximize her value, and offered their ideas and help without any evident consideration of whether this might be an opportunity for SHV. They were both very knowledgeable and insightful about the current environment, not to mention they were technical enough to understand what she was doing, and made excellent suggestions. I personally learned a lot from the meeting.
I've made probably >100 VC pitches in my time, including a few to SHV in the past. While they have never bit on funding, I've always come away with a good impression of the partners. Mike and Sam are 'new blood' there, but I have to say these guys really stand out, and are going to be great VCs. I suspect that their constructive attitude is at least in part a ‘cultural’ matter at SHV. I’d work with either of them in a heartbeat.
Quite a contrast to most firms!
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