Eugene Zhang - Founder and CEO at TSVC explains how success in leadership is being stubborn but able to listen

Global Tech Leaders' Podcast

In today's episode we speak to Eugene Zhang - Founder and CEO at TSVC, also one of the early senior members at Cisco and founding team member at Juniper. TSVC was founded in 2010 proud to be a leading early stage venture capital fund in Silicon Valley, investing in forward thinking ideas and cutting edge de-technologies as well as parking with exceptional founders and extraordinary entrepreneurial community. It has been ranked in the top early stage VC funds in Silicon Valley. Over these 11 years they have delivered outstanding returns for their investors by funding 160 startups in the deep tech focused areas such as SaaS, AI, GIPS, FinTech, Biotech, Blockchain and Semiconductors. With unicorns such as Zoom to their name.

We kick off by learning about Eugene's story and how his gotten to this point:

• Employee working for high-tech companies
• Entrepreneur
• Cisco Systems
• Worked with a lot of good and smart people
• 70 billion dollars
• Started with angel investing

What drove you to drive opportunities and what special criteria did you think was important?

• Religious about all founders with technical background
• Three pillars
• Background and reason for starting a business
• The team to have fire, conviction
• Significant sacrifice, no brainer
• Leadership skills
• A vision, stubborn but can listen

Leadership skills, who and how does someone wow you?

• When you lead, people follow
• The first angel investors were friends

What technology do you believe is ground breaking?

• Facing many unknown
• Forward looking
• Realistic or pipe dream
• Renewable energy
• Openminded to what is different
• Solar is so cheap
• AI - formulation material, testing takes forever
• Block chain, significant impact
• NFT - Non-fungible token

Do you think you have a high tolerance for risky things or is it how you process risk?

• Don't mess with Crypto
• Every time we release a cheque I feel no risk
• No formula
• You let 3 pass
• Debate goes a little crazy
• Participation scheme
• Voting mechanism

Do you ever engage in discussion with founders who need help with culture?

• Play the assisting role
• We don't change structure
• We leave you to run your own show
• We ask them to raise the transparency
• Zoom has a unique culture
• Happiness

Lastly, what do you do for fun and when do you have free time?

• Sports
• Play golf
• Reading
• Listening to podcasts

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