Advice from the world’s top tech investors

In the 20th annual edition of the Forbes Midas List, ten alumni are recognized as the world’s leading tech investors. The publication ranks investors by their portfolio companies that have gone public or been acquired for at least $200 million over the past five years, or that have raised additional funding at a valuation of at least $400 million.

Click on their names to read more on Forbes.

Philippe Botteri (PAR, SVO 98-06), Partner, Accel

“In my mind, the most common pitfall for founders – and the hardest challenge – is to hire the right executives at the right time. As start-ups go through hyper-growth, it is critical for founders to always have in mind the organization they will need a year from now and start hiring today to fill the senior roles. Being late on senior hiring could really impact the ability of a company to scale.”

Philippe's investments include:

• DocuSign
• UiPath
• Melio

Jeremy Liew (AUO 94-96), Partner, Lightspeed Venture Partners

“Many early-stage founders seek to increase the appeal of their product by adding new features to address weaknesses. They are looking for an "and" approach to winning. Instead they should seek out the subset of users who use their product in spite its of weaknesses, understand why, and double down on that. This "or" approach is more likely to help them find their early adopters and focus in on what will cause them to differentiate from their competitors.”

Jeremy's investments include:

• Snap
• Affirm
• Blockchain
• Honest Company

Ann Miura-Ko (NYO, SVO 98-01), Co-Founding Partner, Floodgate

"Nearly all of the successful entrepreneurs we've been lucky enough to work with have ridden an inflection curve whether they knew it or not. Specifically this means that there was some massive change event (e.g. new technology introduction like CRISPR or GPS, societal shift in norms like with COVID, regulatory change like GDPR, etc.) that typically creates a breakthrough for product capability, business model, or distribution. These breakthroughs create a massive pull for whatever the entrepreneur has built and it shows up in revenue or adoption traction."

Ann's investments include:

• Lyft
• Refinery29
• StarkWare

 Peter Wagner (NYO 88-92), Founding Partner, Wing Venture Capital

“Entrepreneurship isn’t about mistake avoidance. It’s about doing a few things exceptionally well. If you have those few things working for you, then you have the opportunity to build a business. If you don’t, nothing else you do will matter.”

Peter's investments include:

• Snowflake
• BlueJeans
• Jellyfish
• Gong

Roelof Botha (JOH 96-98), Partner, Sequoia

Roelof's investments include:

• Unity Software
• Bridgebio
• Eventbrite
• 23andme

Byron Deeter (LAN 96-98), Partner, Bessemer Venture Partners

Byron's investments include:

• Twilio
• DocuSign
• HashiCorp
• SendGrid

Jing Hong (BEI 98-05), Founding Partner, Gaocheng Capital

Jing's investments include:

• Alibaba
• Meituan
• Didi

 Mike Speiser (SVO 98-99), Managing Director, Sutter Hill Ventures

Mike's investments include:

• Snowflake
• Lacework
• Sigma Computing

 Marc Stad (LAN 01-03), Founder and Managing Partner, Dragoneer Investment Group

Marc's investments include:

• PointClickCare
• Airbnb
• Carbon Health
• Nubank

Allen Zhu (SHA 98-00), Managing Director, GSR Ventures

Allen's investments include:

• DiDi Chuxing
• Xingsheng Selected
• Hotmaxx