Become The CEO Of Your Own Destiny: LiveOps CEO And Former eBay COO Maynard Webb, Santa Clara, California (Part 7)

Sramana: You mentioned that you are in the process of building an angel fund. What is the philosophy behind that fund? Are you going to follow the meritocracy philosophy?

Maynard Webb: I have two things I will focus on. One is my foundation, which aims to help the world’s underdogs achieve their goals. The foundation is focused on areas that I know. I have been doing angel investments for 15 years on the side. I am on the board of Salesforce.com and several other companies.

I just decided last year to start sharing some of my angel deal flows and connections with people I had run with over the years. I now have an affiliate network which I share things with. I have 65 affiliates right now, and they are all people I work with.

Sramana: Are you syndicating deals with this group?

Maynard Webb: Yes. I am trying to do deals only in areas I know about such as SaaS, Internet, or mobile. I try to invest in areas that I personally understand. I get offered a lot of things that I don’t know about, and I leave those for someone else.

Sramana: Do you invest only locally? A lot of angels are geographically constrained.

Maynard Webb: I have invested in a company in Canada, and I am considering one in China. I think great ideas are important. If you are closer it is helpful because I can come see you and add value. I am not tied to geography.

Sramana: It seems you are more focused on the merits of the team and company rather than where the company is from.

Maynard Webb: The biggest thing is that the world of work is shifting. There are better models. The more we can do to make sure people know there is another path to get to their goals, the better it is for everybody.

Sramana: I think we can do a lot of work with 1M/1M and LiveOps, and perhaps even some other areas. There are a lot of entrepreneurs who are looking for ideas to implement. If we can institutionalize something that is well conceived and leverage your insight, I am confident we can build some interesting entrepreneurs.

Maynard Webb: I think that would be awesome. There are needs out there, and the more we build the entrepreneur community, the better it is for the entire world.

Sramana: Thank you very much for taking the time to meet with me.

This segment is part 7 in the series : Become The CEO Of Your Own Destiny: LiveOps CEO And Former eBay COO Maynard Webb, Santa Clara, California
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