fundraising storytelling

Aileen Lee traces her path from Gap and Kleiner Perkins to founding Cowboy Ventures, including lessons from serving as a startup CEO. She explains how investors assess founders, leadership, customer fit, fundraising stories, and the scale required for venture returns. She advises founders to practice their pitches, qualify customers and investors, and choose investors through reference checks. The conversation also covers bias against women and nontraditional founders, All Raise’s work on inclusion, and the origins and limits of her research on unicorn companies.

Elon Musk recommends Overwatch and Hearthstone, saying Blizzard makes great games. The conversation turns to Deus Ex and The Last of Us, with both speakers praising strong storytelling. Musk says the original Deus Ex had amazing storytelling and argues that newer games can neglect it. They also discuss how older games such as Mario relied on story despite limited graphics and sound.