Sarah Tavel

Partner at Greylock investing in consumer businesses and the consumerization of IT

THIS CHAT HAPPENED ON December 15, 2015

Discussion

@sarahtavel · partner, greylock

Hi – my name is Sarah Tavel, partner at Greylock partners. Before Greylock, I was one of 35 first employees at Pinterest where I drove product for search, recommendation, machine vision and pin quality, and led three acquisitions when the company scaled through a period of hyper growth. I can speak to everything from investing to scaling companies in both enterprise and consumer. I’m delighted to be here – ask me anything!

upvote share tweet・a year ago

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Ryan Hoover

@rrhoover · Founder, Product Hunt

Sarah! Why did you decide to move from product to VC? (this is something I considered before starting Product Hunt)

8 share tweet・a year ago

Nick Creegan

@njcreegan

@sarahtavel Hi Sarah, thanks for joining! When you joined Greylock Partners, David Sze and James Slavet said that you “saw things in Pinterest that [they] missed”. How do you protect your beliefs in a product, like Pinterest, among those that do not share your vision? And what are your top recommendations for persuading others of the merit of those ideas?

4 share tweet・a year ago

River Place

@riversplace · Co-founder & CEO of Hiccup

Can you please go a little more in-depth on Pinterest scaling through that period of hyper growth. Roadmap? Timeline? Key takeaways? Thank you!

2 share tweet・a year ago

Russ Frushtick

@russfrushtick

What's the most common mistake companies make when scaling?

2 share tweet・a year ago

alex kwon

@alexyoungkwon · oneminute

Sarah! Early stage investing, from what I hear, is a leap of faith. What about a team, or a product, makes you take that leap?

2 share tweet・a year ago

Kingsong Chen

@kingsongchen · Founder at Lace, Marketplace for GovTech

Hi Sarah, what are some interesting ways you have seen network-effect business attract users?

1 share tweet・a year ago

Phil Nguyen

@p_ngu · The Daily Water Cooler + Vettery

Hey @sarahtavel! Thanks so much for taking the time to answer questions. Have two questions for you: 1. Loved your writing on dollars vs. minutes (https://medium.com/@sarahtavel/t...), but noticed you focused on Series A funding. Does the investor shift towards "dollars" away from "minutes" still apply for later stage companies too? 2. Regarding your other writing on GIFs (https://medium.com/@sarahtavel/m...), what's your favorite GIF?