My name is Glen Anderson. I've had kind of a wide background in engineering and in lately in some investment world things. So, I started as an engineer doing chip design. So I was really working on the actual hardware. So that really interested me and still does today, you know, how is the computer made; how are transistors built. So I graduated with electrical engineering degree, But then I switched pretty fast into computer science because I realized that even designing hardware involved software. The theme of my talk today is going to be like, software's where it's at, if you want to automate any industry, even investments, Actually, software is really the tool that lets you do so many things, so you really need to learn software. Number one lesson for me today is really just make sure you absolutely get some software exposure. It's just such an amazing tool to let you automate, questions about data and discover things. So let me see what incidents experience shaped my career. So, I started kind of high end what they would call in Silicon Valley kind of chip design in the nineties, which was really fun, which was kind of at the time the highest thing to do it. Today wouldn't be seen that way, but that then that was like the, you know, the jet pilot kind of thing to do was to design the new computer, the new CPUs. I did that for a few years, and then I left to go do software tools, and I had a funny reaction, which I think is interesting for the audience here. Many of my good friends, really good friends, told me I was making the biggest mistake of my life to change. So I changed from chip design and moved into software, and that change for me was really good. Ended up pivoting me across different industries. But my friends who stayed in chip design ended up it actually many of them. One is running all the GP at NVidia, and one of them runs a big chunk of AMD and some of the guys run big chunks of Intel. So a lot of my friends ended up making a really big in chip design, you know? So you have to decide. I think in your career, if you're gonna be really focused on on one thing or if you're gonna go wide. So for me, the incident that kind of changed my career and made me go wide was this. I was working as a chip designer and I was using this software that we really, really found valuable. We could not have taped out the chip without this software. So I left the chip company and to go join that software company. And I caused just a little bit of a problem because people didn't like that, that change. But it exposed me to much more going on in the world and I ended up hopping from from chip design software to network hardware to network software to artificial intelligence software, machine learning stuff and finally into investment. So I think that that was maybe the first incident that kicked me into this wide instead of a deep career. But I think there's no right answer. It's just you should figure out what you want to do.

Monta Vista Capital is early stage firm, so we're what they call first believer money. We're usually the first money into a deal. Besides, from maybe friends and family, it's often we'll see a team that's four or five people that got enough inertia to have, some founders had written some code or done some kind of business development on their own. And they had enough inertia are ready to get some money from their usually friends and family. Really like it's like their uncle or something will write them a check for $50,000. And so we had a few of those need to go in and we come in with the first money. So we don't really have a specific requirement other than you know, that there's good domain knowledge. So it's hard for us to invest in just pure software people. To really start an effective company you really need to know a domain Well, so I would suggest pick a domain that you really love and really go get a job in that domain. I mean, it could be anything. It could be something medical related. It could be, um, you know, there's there's 1000 different things to go choose. We just funded a company that's doing really well doing on import export automation. You know that something you wouldn't even think of. But it's about how containers you know, how containers get unloaded off the ships and how they go through customs and stuff. And so that's a terribly inefficient process. If you just dive in and learn about an industry, maybe go be an intern somewhere, something that interests you. You get to be a domain expert. Then you can get a job and get funded for investment much more easily than just, you know, pure software person. You're just appears offer person, you know, go work for Facebook or or Amazon or Microsoft, and you'll do great. I mean, I would be a great way to get experience that way, too.

Well, probably the answer is, don't do a first email. You know, it's a funny thing, but it really is true. A cold emails almost just almost never work. You really have to network, and it's hard and covet, but you really need to. Yeah, there's so many emails that show up in everything sees front front doorstep. You know, there's always like to submit your business plan here or send us an email form. Unfortunately, those are almost never given credit. You really do gotta work your network and find somebody who knows somebody in the firm and have going forward this deal in. It's just the way things are done and I don't know, quite you know what? Maybe it's like a Hollywood words like insider information, but, um, there's other ways to half the system. I think if you don't have that other ways to hack the system would be like to win a contest. You know, get some accreditation. Somehow with your university, do some open source that has a whole bunch of users, you know, do something that has some credibility on its own. Because unfortunately, no matter what you write in a cold email. I would say it's almost never gonna get clicked on buy any kind of venture capital from Unless unless you somehow happened, magically hit it. And even then, probably there's already 10 a day that looked just like yours and promising the same thing.