Karen Page: Venture Boards, Founder Governance, and the Path from Startup to Scale

(0:00) Intro (1:25) About the podcast sponsor: The American College of Governance Counsel (2:12) Start of interview (3:01) Karen's origin story (3:44) Early Career and Transition to Technology (5:40) The Dot-Com Era and her time at Brobeck and later at Orrick. (8:50) Her transition to Prosper Marketplace (Chris Larsen's company)  (9:40) Her time at Box, Inc. and Apple *Reference to E179 with Jack Lazar (13:14) Her journey to Venture Capital. (14:16) Joining B Capital (in 2019) and the firm's investment focus (16:16) The nature of B Capital's partnership with the Boston Consulting Group (BCG)  (19:32) Governance in Early Stage Companies (20:42) Her role as a board partner of her firm. *Reference to VCBA program (23:22) Building Trust in Governance "It starts on day one. And that trust is just, is literally earned through every conversation, every interaction, and certainly every board meeting." (25:41) Founder-Friendly Terms and Market Changes (28:43) The Importance of Governance During Crisis (31:52) CEO Succession and Leadership Transition (37:45) Advisory Boards vs. Fiduciary Boards (40:06) On board observers (44:08) Board Committees and Their Evolution (48:10) The Debate: Stay Private or Go Public (51:37) Books that have greatly influenced her life:Annie Duke's Thinking in Bets (2018)Ray Dalio's Principles (2017)Shoe Dog by Phil Night (2016) (52:00) Her mentors: David Geyer (Brobeck), Aaron Levie (Box), Howard Morgan (B Capital) (52:48) Quotes that she thinks of often or lives her life by: "never cut what you can untie". And the other is "never confuse motion with progress." (53:03) An unusual habit or an absurd thing that she loves.  (53:25) The people she most admires (55:50) Diversity on Boards in Venture Capital Karen Page is a General Partner and Board Partner at B Capital. As a Board Partner, she collaborates with portfolio company leadership, B Capital’s investment team and the firm’s network of advisors to provide best-in-class strategic guidance You can follow Evan on social media at: X: @evanepstein LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/epsteinevan/  Substack: https://evanepstein.substack.com/ __ To support this podcast you can join as a subscriber of the Boardroom Governance Newsletter at https://evanepstein.substack.com/ __ Music/Soundtrack (found via Free Music Archive): Seeing The Future by Dexter Britain is licensed under a Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License