Tod Francis and Nikhil Basu Trivedi of Shasta Ventures research the key traits of 25 billion dollar companies and conclude that ‘big ideas are often not obvious at the Series A stage’ in “What Did Billion Dollar Companies Look Like at the Series A?”Adam D’Augelli of True Ventures summarizes his past five years in Venture Capital with his strategies for identifying the people and markets to invest in in “Markets and People (or Thoughts on Venture Investing)”

Peter Levine and Sudip Chakrabarti of Andreessen Horowitz dive into ‘how microservices architecture and Linux containers will tame distributed computed for developers and ops’ in “Dawn of the Data Center Operating System”

Lenny Pruss of RRE Ventures highlights ‘the promise of microservices’ and why he sees an investment opportunity in this growing sector of services in “The Case for Microservices in the Enterprise”

Brad Feld of Foundry Group shares his thoughts on depression and how he’s learned to be more open about it in “Bringing Depression Out of the Shadows In Startups”

Angel Investor Joanne Wilson says, ‘timing is everything’, as she reflects on the idea of changing past investment decisions in “The One That Got Away”

Josh Wolfe of Lux Capital explains why he believes ‘more [product] options means more freedom, but too much freedom [of choice] means chaos’ in “Choicing”

From the Operators

Thor Muller formerly of Get Satisfaction recaps some of his experiences building Get Satisfaction in response to Sprinklr’s acquisition announcementin “In Memoriam: Get Satisfaction (2007-2015)”

Chris Messina formerly of Google offers his definition of ‘full-stack employee’, describes their work ethic and impact on teams in “The Full-Stack Employee”

Tristan Pollock of Storefront outlines his eleven ‘unspoken guidelines to win friends and influence investors in Silicon Valley’ in “Silicon Valley Etiquette”

Azeem Azhar of PeerIndex sheds light on a philosophy he thinks ‘can help anyone build something that matters’ in “Think Big, Start Small, Act Fast”

Tracy Lloyd of Emotive Brand guides founders in how to think about developing their startup’s brand strategy and why she says it’s important to do early on in “6 Reasons Why A Startup Should Invest In Brand Strategy at the Very Beginning”