Wesley Chan is commonly seen in his signature buffalo hat; nonetheless, he could also be much more well-known for his skill to identify unicorns.
Over the course of his profession in enterprise capital, he’s invested in over 20 unicorns, together with AngelList, Dialpad, Ring, Rocket Lawyer and Sourcegraph. 5 of these went on to turn into decacorns: Canva, Flexport, Guild Schooling, Plaid and Robinhood. Chan’s was the primary verify into most of these.
After working at Google in its early days as an engineer, he grew to become an investor. His enterprise capital pedigree began at Google Ventures and continued to Felicis Ventures. Now because the co-founder and managing associate of FPV Ventures, he leads the two-year-old agency’s $450 million enterprise capital fund with co-founder Pegah Ebrahimi.
And whereas all of this success has been well-documented over time, his private journey … not a lot. Chan spoke to TechCrunch concerning the methods his life impacts how he invests in startups.
His story began earlier than he was born, when his household migrated to the U.S. from Hong Kong within the Nineteen Seventies.
“They got here right here with no cash, and actually, rising up they didn’t have any cash,” Chan mentioned. “It’s simply actually fascinating to observe that journey. That they would go away a spot the place they didn’t communicate a phrase of English and — they nonetheless don’t communicate English very properly — and construct a brand new life as a result of they felt that that was what was mandatory.”
Chan admits that he wasn’t as appreciative of his mother and father’ fortitude when he was younger. Nevertheless, rising up in a hard-working, immigrant household that didn’t have a lot cash ended up instructing him find out how to acknowledge nuances and be somebody who can adapt.
“I’m in a enterprise now the place individuals decide you in a short time,” Chan mentioned. “Amongst my LPs, loads of them don’t have the background I do. I’ve to choose up all these tunes of issues that they have been skilled on and be a little bit of a chameleon. Then I’ve to sign to them that they will belief me.”
How he received into MIT even with dangerous grades
Chan’s mother and father cut up up when he was a child, and he was raised in a single-parent family by his mom. He labored three jobs in highschool to assist assist his household, together with as a parking zone attendant, a waiter and a dishwasher in a biology lab on the California Institute of Expertise.
He landed the dishwashing job from an advert on Craigslist and remembers taking the No. 22 bus from his working-class Southern California city on a 42-minute journey to CalTech, the place he would go and wash beakers.
At some point, the lab supervisor, famed gene biologist Ellen Rothenberg, requested him if he would learn a college-level e book on biology and laboratory strategies. Not eager to lose the job, he did it.
“I had barely taken highschool biology,” Chan mentioned. “I went to a highschool that wasn’t nice. It was like one way or the other that I wound up making my means via faculty. Different youngsters have been doing after-school sports activities or going to PSAT prep lessons. Not solely did I not have that, I used to be having to generate income for my household.”
Seems, no matter the highschool expertise, Rothenberg noticed one thing in Chan. When one of many PhD college students left, Chan was promoted to the lab bench. And for the following three years, as he went via highschool, Chan was additionally doing analysis.
This was within the early Nineties, through the nascent days of stem cell analysis. Rothenberg’s workforce taught the teenaged Chan find out how to do analysis and he was later a part of a gaggle that found a protocol for altering stem cells into crimson blood cells. He additionally helped when the workforce revealed an instructional paper on the protocol.
Then someday Rothenberg, who had gone to each Harvard and MIT, requested if Chan had considered faculty.
“I’m like, oh man, I’ve to complete this job and generate income for the mother and father, and she or he’s telling me I ought to go to highschool,” he mentioned. “Little did I do know that she referred to as the admissions places of work. If you’re like a poor immigrant pupil, you don’t perceive all this stuff.”
Harvard ignored her, however MIT didn’t. And that’s how individuals get into faculty with horrible grades, Chan mentioned.
“Someone took an opportunity on me,” he mentioned. “So many individuals stumble via life, and I don’t assume I’d have had the alternatives that I did at present if it wasn’t for somebody who mentioned, ‘He works arduous. He desires to do analysis.’”
Enterprise classes from being lonely
That’s how Chan mentioned he seems at enterprise capital, too. He doesn’t search for the one who was a member of the correct nation membership. As an alternative, he seems for individuals who have grit and perceive what it means to work arduous.
“One of many classes I discovered, rising up that means, was that you’ve got every part to realize and nothing to lose,” Chan mentioned. “It’s arduous work, plus loads of luck. Plus, understanding that there’s individuals serving to you finally open the door to something.”
He credit that assist from Rothenberg for every part that got here after.
“If it wasn’t for MIT, I wouldn’t have discovered Google. If it wasn’t for Google, I wouldn’t have discovered Google Ventures. If it wasn’t for Google Ventures, I wouldn’t have discovered my workforce at Felicis,” he added. “And if it wasn’t for Felicis, I wouldn’t have had Canva and all these superb firms, a lot of them run by immigrants or those who have a lot of grit, who grew up in very non-traditional backgrounds like myself.”
To attend MIT, he needed to depart every part he knew at residence and transfer to the other coast. As soon as there, Chan additionally labored a number of jobs to pay his means via MIT, the place he received his bachelor’s diploma in laptop science and later graduated with a Grasp’s of Engineering.
What was it like to go away his household? In a phrase, arduous. Resulting from having to assist himself, Chan wasn’t capable of take as many lessons as he wished to or be like his mates who would go on enjoyable journeys on breaks.
Nevertheless, he seems again on that have as one other factor that set him up for all times as a enterprise capitalist.
“After I led the Sequence A in Canva, which is able to finally return 40x plus for that fund, 111 individuals mentioned no, which made it very lonely to try this deal,” Chan mentioned. “If you’re the man that may’t go to promenade as a result of it’s important to work, or you possibly can’t go on the ski journey or to the commencement social gathering, that’s what I’m coping with.”
Being unnoticed like that taught him: “Who cares if the remainder of the world is laughing at us; you get this superb quantity of grit and the power to love being lonely and be okay being lonely.”
After commencement, Chan went again to California and received a job at HP Labs. Then the dot-com crash occurred, and that job fizzled out. However all was not misplaced. There was one firm hiring regardless of the disastrous atmosphere. And so they occurred to love individuals from MIT.
Spoiler, it was Google. Now, working for Google will not be just like the film “The Internship” the place Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson lie their means into an internship and spend time competing with different groups on numerous tasks. It was higher … for many who appreciated canine.
“Canine have been operating round and would run into you and knock you over,” Chan mentioned. “It wasn’t like that film. It’s important to get to work.”
He was placed on a mission growing the advert system, “which was essentially the most mandatory on the time, so I received very fortunate.”
Constructing one thing that founders need
This kicked off a 15-year Google profession that included seven years constructing merchandise and 5 years as chief of employees to Sergey Brin, who co-founded Google with Larry Web page. Chan labored on tasks, together with the Google toolbar, which grew to become Google Chrome.
“If you’re one of many few firms that made it, it was nice,” Chan mentioned. “Larry and Sergey have been very sort, at all times saying, ‘Hey, possibly Wesley introduced us one thing and we should always let him experiment this out.’ That may ultimately turn into Google Analytics or Google Ventures.”
He was even one of many individuals who interviewed Sundar Pichai when he was up for a job at Google. Clearly, Pichai later grew to become CEO of Alphabet and Google.
In 2009, Chan advised Google that he wished to do a startup. He had joined the corporate when it was lower than 100 individuals and stayed till it was over 35,000. He recollects them joking that whenever you go to a startup, you’re the one shopping for the bathroom paper. Chan’s reply was that he didn’t thoughts shopping for the bathroom paper. As an alternative, they advised he go assist Invoice Maris construct Google Ventures.
“They advised me to go construct a product that founders need, quite than be a founder whose product that an organization desires. And we did it,” Chan mentioned. “Google Ventures remains to be an actual agency at present that folks need to take cash from.”
Past overcoming obstacles to get the place he’s at present, Chan continues to face some odds, particularly as a homosexual Asian man in tech. When he first began in enterprise capital, senior white males have been operating the corporations, sharing deal circulate on the soccer fields or throughout an African safari, he mentioned.
If you’re somebody seeking to construct your deal circulate community however your background doesn’t match the nation membership mould, it’s troublesome, he mentioned. And there may be not a lot of a assist group in enterprise capital for the LGBTQ+ group.
“That’s the problem of being an outsider on this enterprise,” Chan mentioned. “It’s important to battle your means up or discover alternative ways of working with founders so it doesn’t seem like you’re being lazy or not making any progress. In the event you have a look at enterprise capital and the variety of profitable companions within the LGBTQ+, you possibly can rely on two arms. There aren’t a lot of them, and there’s in all probability 6,000 enterprise capitalists. Why is there such low illustration? And the variety of overtly out ones like us is even decrease.”
That’s why he and Pegah Ebrahimi began FPV Ventures two years in the past — to supply the fashion of investing primarily based on their unconventional backgrounds. (Ebrahimi reduce her enamel because the youngest CIO at Morgan Stanley earlier than doing a bunch of C-suite roles at numerous tech firms. She really labored on Google’s IPO.)
And the managing companions are doing so with the assist of charities and foundations. Lots of the founders the agency works with “care deeply that they’re earning profits for good individuals,” Chan mentioned.
“Our founders occur to be underrepresented minorities or girls, and the actually fascinating theme that I preserve listening to is that they really feel individuals misunderstand them,” Chan mentioned. “We discover founders who’ve the drive to succeed and have this superb mixture of humility and success. Additionally they guarantee that all their persons are taken care of.”
