ClimateTech Investor. Co-Founder of @ClimacticVC with @Rajil. Co-Founder of @FreestyleVC, Spinner, @Crackle_TV and @hashtagclimate. #efficiency #resilience
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FMK AI. I veer from one to the other, from fear to elation, from idea to product in the blink of an eye. And from fighting to keep up with Joneses. So I wrote about it. linkedin.com/posts/joshfelse…
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I watched the 3.5 hour action-packed, musical, political extravaganza @RRRMovie film last night on @netflix. Get ready to have your senses totally overwhelmed in the best possible way!! newyorker.com/culture/the-fr…
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“Feminists should be called normal and everyone else should be called sexist” from my 13 year old 5 minutes ago.
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So my child is on a trip and of course isn’t responding to my texts. yesterday she asked me to do something for her and I suggested she at least ask how I was doing first. Then she sent me this.
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I still can't fund founders who are waiting to quit their jobs before they go full time. I get the financial constraint but I want to back founders who are so compelled that they cant even imagine doing anything else
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Space/building efficiency are keys to climate change. Got a first hand look at the exciting innovation coming out of Brooklyn at @ori_living. Ceiling beds, expandable closets and offices. Watch a studio becomes a 1 bedroom!
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If I had a dollar for every startup CEO who loves his/her PR agency, I could buy a cheap cup of coffee
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I got 50+ NOs from VCs for the 2 startups I co-founded and it sucked. Thankfully all it takes is 1 VC to lead the sheep and I got that done.
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Listen I don’t want to 💩on this tech Miami love affair but as a Miami native, I am in utter disbelief that my home town has been anointed. We’ll see how many last through one hellish summer, hurricane season, climate change, unique culture (which I love), flakiness, corruption.
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Why do so some VCs who are “made” use their power to bully anyone who publicly disagrees with them, especially those with far less power. Be secure in who you are and what you have accomplished. No need to be a downpressor.
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Of all the personality traits that make for a successful founder, I’ve found self-awareness to be the most vital and it’s universally accessible.
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No matter how stressed out you get as a VC, it’s like 1% of the stress of a founder. In a situation now where I’ve had to remind myself of that, repeatedly, which means the founder is really ffing stressed.
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In the midst of a global pandemic and raging fires in my state of California, it may seem self-serving to announce that I am leaving @freestylevc, the fund I co-founded, to focus my efforts on the planet. freestyle.vc/josh-turns-towa…
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At @freestylevc, we invest $1.5M+ in seed capital in each of our companies and as of today we will also invest directly in our founder's mental health. We want our founders to have the support we never had as founders. It's time! medium.com/@joshmedia/for-th…
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Elon gets to follow whomever the hell he wants to just like the rest of us. There are bigger battles to fight
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When I get an unsolicited email for SEED funding and its sent from the chief of staff of the founder. Mind you this is an email for the SEED round.
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As a VC, when I am struggling with or frustrated by a founder we have backed, I try and remember that the conflict is way harder and more intense for them
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I was recently asked by students at @DukeU, what they should study in school to prepare for entrepreneurship. Without hesitation, I replied, “creative writing”.
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Almost every massive tech company, B2C or B2B, started out being known for something narrow that they did noticeably better than anyone else.
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I just learned that a founder of a company I am leaning in on isnt vaxxed and only lmk after he accepted a F2F and then I asked. I am going to explore why he isn't vaxxed, but if there isnt a compelling medical reason, my instinct is to pass.
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Heard the dreaded "cancer" from my doc this week which he quickly said was 100% treatable with minor surgery. No way I could've IDed basal carcinoma skin cancer from looking at this tiny, innocuous piece of skin. SO PLEASE GET an annual skin exam from your Dermatologist!
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After investing in 100+ incredible founders, its clear to me that there is no single personality type associated with a successful startup
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My @Uber driver got pulled over for rolling through a 🛑, 2 blocks from my destination. I got out of the car & told the driver I would help him. I told the officer that the driver is a good man & typically obeys the rules (had this driver 5x). The officer ripped up the ticket!!
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Receive incendiary text/email. Write incendiary response. Sit with it for 5 min. Replace incendiary response with conciliatory alternative. Send it. Feel 1000x better. All day.
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Your followers and the 3m people who answered your poll in no way constitute a representative sample of all of America.
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We Californians finally have a simple and private way to track our exposure to folks with COVID. Go to Exposure Notifications in settings on your iPhone or Android device and turn it on! Protect your friends and family. Save lives! More info here canotify.ca.gov/
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One of our portfolio CEOs just "enforced" vacation for his whole team. Every employee must take a full week off between now and September. Such a forward thinking, empathic move.
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So frustrating that @linkedin doesn't offer a "strength of connection" feature since many of us are so promiscuous with our connections that they have become worthless.
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How many of you didn’t realize the actual depth of your emotional trauma from these 4 years until you heard or saw these words “President-elect Joe Biden”. I sure didn’t and I think we were all just trying to keep it together.
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There are so many roads to starting a company: college grad, high school drop out, corporate gig, military, stay-at-home parent, athlete, PHD, celebrity.....Don't let anyone tell you there is only one way!!!! What's your road?
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Would be amazing if @calm and @Headspace offered their premium meditation services for free for the next 6 months to help us get through this crushingly stressful time. If you do this founders will never forget how supportive you were when they needed it most.
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those asking black people to move on are, at worst, racist and at best ignorant of generational and societal reverberations of slavery
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Some good stats as we prepare for @freestylevc's annual LP meeting. The Valley's tech dominance is over, at least for us. Over half of the 9 companies in our young Fund IV portfolio are based outside the bay area or have 50%+ of their employees outside the bay area.
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I'd take a stellar founder with a mediocre idea 100x over a mediocre founder with a stellar idea.
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I promise every founder we invest in that I will never have a convo behind their backs, unless they are dishonest or repeatedly negligent. I had investors two-face me and it was demoralizing and counter productive.
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It's a big day: 1) my friend, @jennylefcourt, is now an = GP at @freestylevc 2) we have $90M + to invest in founders techcrunch.com/2017/04/10/fr…
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Female competitors in #CrossFitGames are insane athletes. Watching this competition for the first time & blown away.
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10 years ago, @howietl, while a student at @DukeU, was our first intern at @freestylevc. 5 years ago we invested in Howie’s @airtable dream of changing the way we store & share data. Then we bought into his long game & got out of the way. forbes.com/sites/stevenberto…
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I almost can’t speak. This teacher must be outted. Good for the kid who recorded it and hopefully he showed it to the school’s leadership.
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Of all the plants that inspire wonder, seaweed is the ultimate super crop. 1) Sequesters 200M tonnes of CO2/year, doesn't require fertilizer and makes everything healthier around it 2)high protein, vitamin-rich food source 3) biodegradable replacement for petroleum-based plastic
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There is no "good" reason why mental health and fitness should be less important or less mass market than physical health and fitness. A group of us are meeting today to try and solve this complex challenge. I have my therapist on standby after.
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Best not to judge people who are taking what may seem like extreme precautions about #CoronaOutbreak. For the most part, they aren't hurting you and they are just trying to manage their anxiety with action.
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Ok so there are so many reasons to be depressed right now BUT the entrepreneurial energy now going into battling #climatechange is off the charts and it's grounded in what is possible.
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You know what's hard. Putting on a happy sales face for a meeting when you are feeling down. Curious what tactics people use. And yes even as a VC, I still pitch projects I am working on to others. once a founder.....
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a founder who was pitching me rejected doing cohort analysis for his b2b startup because it was too time intensive. As a founder/investor, it’s always been among the most important means of tracking performance/identifying iterative changes so the response was surprising
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So we canceled our trip to NY but it’s a good thing NorCal doesn’t suck. I am still very much in love with our state.
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While late stage investors certainly deserve kudos for their portfolio cos that IPO, SEED investors get massive respect for seeing the potential for that gold when the crystal ball is dark
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If you care about our democracy, you MUST follow @Amy_Siskind who writes a weekly watchlist on how Trump is undermining our government
Experts in authoritarianism advise to keep a list of things subtly changing around you so you'll...
Week 32 (1/2): facebook.com/amy.siskind/pos…
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I've passed on a few deals in general tech that have become unicorns (Uber) and I pulled my hair out. I've passed on a deal or 2 in climate tech that have surged and I feel good for the planet.
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The woman sitting next to me on my flight to Miami has no reading material and no electronics and is just staring straight ahead. Reminds me of that Seinfeld episode with Elaine and Puddy.
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Capetown is out of water in 90 days and it's residents will have to queue up under armed guards to get their rations of water. It's insane this mad max scenario isn't getting more attention. #climatechange forbes.com/sites/trevornace/…
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- emotional support dog
- build bird house
- failing is ok
- raise 300m at series b from softbank
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14 cents of every venture capital dollar now goes to #climatetech. Wonder how this compares to the growth of the Internet as a sector in the 90s.
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Curious how founders respond to stress over years and multiple incidents. Does it get easier because you develop perspective? Do you harden and basically get numb to it? Or does it keep building until you crash?
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We are leading an oversubscribed seed round in a very talented founder yet we/founder are leaving room for an angel with meaningful supply chain/logistics experience. Amazon experience is a plus. Never tapped twitter for this use case so curious..
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Entrepreneurs rise up and demand change from their VCs. Freestyle’s own general partner, @jennylefcourt, cofounded #FoundersForChange because she said, “it is about everyone realizing that diversity can be a competitive advantage.” mobile.nytimes.com/2018/03/2…
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For a seed investor, when one of your portfolio cos raises a Series A, it’s still a landmark validating event, even with all the capital out there and despite the cynicism. Celebrate with your founders.
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Yes I am rotating my time and capital toward the earth & thx @bizcarson for raising consciousness about this cause of causes. PS, please don't yell at me about the title and the gigantic photo. protocol.com/josh-felser-fre…
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CA has vaccinated 17% of the pop, which ranks us #23 among all states and #1 in the large state group. Next closest state to our 13.2M doses is Texas at 8.8M. @GavinNewsom has really turned things around. So grateful.
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We at @freestylevc are spending significant time thinking about founder mental health & have some powerful news we want to share soon. Been so frustrating to get the media to write about It, especially mass media. Symbolic of Mental health not getting the attention it deserves
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Will Jordan contribute land, adjacent to the West Bank in the Jordan Valley toward the two state solution?
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Articulate, personalized cold email from a non-bay area founder led to an insightful call for us both and intros to pre-seed funds. The system can actually work so don't give up!
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Alone time is significantly undervalued in our tech culture. It's part of the infrastructure for happiness.
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I have invested in 6 "climate" companies in the last 6 months without meeting any of the founders in person, until today, when I finally met my two most recent. The intimacy of the meeting was not lost on me. There is no substitute.
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When I disagree with something that a friend (vs someone i don’t know) has said on Twitter, I tend to DM that person so we can have a real dialog vs the shaming or grandstanding that occurs with a public response.
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Who remembers Netscape and how blown away you were when you first experienced it. Crazy that Netscape open-sourced its code to create Mozilla which led to Firefox and is now part of Facebook.
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Sometimes I wonder if pets are better at sizing up founders than VCs? Meet Rosie the founder whisperer.
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As soon as I know I am going to pass on a company, I immediately share that news and why with the entrepreneur, but offer not to end the convo if we have more time scheduled. Half the time the founder wants to hang up immediately.
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Hearing that some OG climate folks aren't welcoming the new exciting wave of techies leaping to climate tech. Cmon people the earth doesn't have time for this roadblock! This new wave of talent will lift all boats.
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I typically invest in 4 startups/yr but since becoming religious about including "impact" in my process I'm at 0⃣ for '17. Who will be 1st?
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I am a huge fan of the hyperlink in email, especially around intros (linkedins and URLs). I take the extra step to add them myself and I am so appreciative when others do.
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I'm really trying but I can't seem to invest in bay area startups anymore that dont have at least half their employees based outside of the bay area.
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There was this consumer startup and it was the greatest first 3 month experience I'd ever had. Vibrant and unique. Addicting and rewarding. My cool friends were all on it. It felt like our little club. Until it didnt. And then it was gone and we were sad. Name that company.
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What if a small group of VCs who had been operators collaborated with the promise of creating greater transparency, offering more supportive services around mental & physical health and access to a broader bus dev network. Would you call BS or be like "it's about time".
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Offering free mental health services to our founders is certainly a gift to them but it's actually a gift to us too as we give them the relief they deserve. Until mental health is treated like physical health, investors and employers will need to step up.
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As corporate employee, I never had a female boss. As a two-time founder, I never had a female VC. As a VC, 1/3 of our capital comes from female partners at big institutional funds.
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that who he follows on twitter is going to somehow make him more aware of issues affecting women
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Really trying to respond first when I am introed to a founder vs the more typical VC power move which is sitting back until the founder responds. Small thing but hopefully it's received well.
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And just like that my son is off to Ecuador where he he will be working with students and locals on ecology, reforestation and much more. So proud of him. And I am sure he won’t like my description of his job!
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Maybe the most powerful line of the night "We don't need a ruler. We are the rulers" nitter.app/ewerickson/status/7585…
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Americans create 4.5 lbs of garbage/person/day. Whoa just take that in for a second. We Americans generate 1/3 of all waste in the world. I think we can do better.
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As a VC you soak up knowledge from your portfolio companies that you think makes you an expert but in fact just makes you dangerous
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