Documentary

Amy and I, along with Techstars, were Executive Producers for Robin Hauser ‘s film “bias “. It’s an extremely helpful documentary around understanding unconscious bias. When Robin made the film, she concentrated on examples around gender and race, but the principles apply to all aspects of bias. I’ve always felt the final wording on the overview captured the film well. bias is a film that challenges us to confront our hidden biases and understand what we risk when we follow our gut. Through exposing her own biases, award-winning documentary filmmaker Robin Hauser highlights the nature of implicit bias and the grip it holds on our social and professional lives. ...

Amy and I are proud executive producers of the upcoming movie Pioneer In Skirts . It has been part of our activity supporting independent documentaries about gender diversity, especially in science and tech. The daughter/mother leadership of Ashley Maria and Lea-Ann Berst along with their team has stayed after it and are close to the finish line. Watch the trailer and then if you are inclined toss a little money into the GoFund Me campaign to help finish off the film . ...

I regularly get asked where my investing philosophy comes from. There isn’t an easy answer, as it comes from a lot of places, numerous people who influence my thinking (publicly and privately), my partners, and lots of reflection and critical thinking around things that have worked and haven’t worked for me over the past 25 years. However, one public person who has influenced my thinking for a long time is Warren Buffett. I don’t know Buffett, but I’ve been a fan and follower since college. I read his annual report every year. I’ve also read several biographies on him as well as a bunch of stuff on his long-time partner Charlie Munger (who I’ve learned even more from.) ...

Long Haul Films is the video production company that does our videos like Bored Meetings , Worst of Times , and I’m a VC . We are huge fans of Melissa and Tom. They have a new documentary coming out called Adele and Everything After . It is an award-winning documentary about Marty, a woman with an untreatable heart condition that made her pass out every day, and Adele, one of the world’s first cardiac alert service dogs. ...

Amy and I are financially supporting a new movie about mental health, depression, and suicide called The Weight of Gold. Jeremy Bloom (Olympic skier, pro-football player, CEO of Integrate, and awesome human) introduced me to the creator of the film Brett Rapkin. THE WEIGHT OF GOLD / Sizzle Reel from Podium Pictures on Vimeo . While the focus of the storytelling is around Olympic athletes, it highlights a challenge that one in five Americans struggles with. Our goal for supporting films like this is to help eliminate the stigma around mental health and depression. It’s an enormous challenge in our society and one that I think is worth working hard at.

A little over a year ago I wrote a post about a feature film Amy and I were helping fund called For Here or To Go . The movie is about a set of Indian software developers in the US on H1-B visas. The main character wanted to start a company, or join a startup, but couldn’t make either happen in the context of the current H1-B visa constraints. It felt relevant when we helped fund it. It seems even more relevant today. It’s an excellent movie and my punch line from the blog post a year ago was: ...

Over the weekend, our Monthly Match for the National Immigration Law Center raised over $47,000, . For everyone who contributed, thank you! In the emails I got, one stood out. It pointed me at an Indiegogo campaign for a documentary done by American Muslim Storytellers . The timing of the email was particularly good as I had just read a Washington Post Story about American Muslims raising money to repair vandalized Jewish cemetery. ...

One of the philanthropic activities that Amy and I have been doing is helping fund documentaries around issues that we care about. A breakout documentary from 2015 was CODE: Debugging the Gender Gap . We got to know Robin Hauser , the director and producer, through the process and thought she was awesome. When she told us last summer about her new documentary called Bias, Amy and I jumped on the opportunity to be the executive producers. The sizzle reel is out and was shown at Mark Suster’s Upfront Summit. Take a look (click through to watch on Vimeo.) ...

One of my core values is diversity of everything. I’ve been involved deeply in several organizations, such as National Center for Women and Information Technology , that have been focused on increasing gender diversity in computer science and entrepreneurship. More recently, I’ve expanded my lens a lot to include many other dimensions of diversity. The mission of the Techstars Foundation , which is improving diversity in tech entrepreneurship, is an example of that. ...

Last night Amy and I watched the movie Something Ventured: Risk, Reward, and the Original Venture Capitalists. This was my reward (I got to choose) since she watched both football games yesterday (and today). We have a 15 minute and 30 minute rule on any movie – after 15 minutes the chooser asks “still into this movie?” If the answer is no, we stop. This question gets asked by the chooser again after 30 minutes. If the answer is yes, we go for the duration, even if someone falls asleep. For example, after 15 minutes the other day, Amy said “still in” on my choice of The Hebrew Hammer . After 30 minutes, we were both “no’s” and that was the end of that. ...