Editor’s Note: Semil Shah is a contributor to TechCrunch. You can follow him on Twitter at @semil.
“In the Studio” opens up February by hosting a former Wall Street derivatives trader turned early-stage venture investor in San Francisco. Renee DiResta, an Associate with O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures (OATV), is relatively new to the West Coast startup scene. After finishing a CS degree in college, she worked in the fast-paced world of trading derivatives on Wall Street. During that time, DiResta began to explore an interest in technology and startups, slowly building connections with the New York City startup community. Interestingly, as DiResta notes in this discussion, she wasn’t comfortable interacting with tech folks online because, in finance, the culture is to remain quite and unseen.
In this conversation, DiResta talks about how she found out about the opening at OATV, how she was introduced to Bryce Roberts through friends at a startup, how she reflects on nearly two years as an early-stage investor, and what has surprised her most about sitting on this side of the table — such as the remarkable level of open discussion and collaboration among trusted investors that OATV seeks to work with. This discussion would be of interest to anyone (especially those in finance) who are interested in investing in early-stage companies, and what one may expect to functionally do in such a role.
I’ve worked for the government, in quantitative finance, and most recently, in VC. While the industries & missions have varied, the common thread is a love of aggregating incomplete information, analyzing it, and generating a plan of action. As a trader, I valued derivative instruments (ie ETFs) when many of the underlying components weren’t trading. That process had to happen in seconds, under pressure. In seed-stage VC, I identify market drivers and look for technological and societal trends, then...
Austin, TX
Seattle, WA
San Diego, CA
Menlo Park, CA
Boston, MA
Disrupt Europe: Berlin Hackathon
Berlin, Germany
