How do people make it to VC Partner in <5 years from purely SWE background?
I'm a current college student and have always been interested in VC. I see some profiles of people who made it to Venture Partner at firms like Index, TCV, Battery, Accel, in less than 5 years, having only worked in SWE at early stage startups. In fact, I can count at least 3 people who became partners at top VC firms after working in SWE at Scale—back when it was early stage. They had no MBB/IB/GE experience, sometimes not even any PM experience. How common is this move? Is it basically done through pure networking? I am sitting on an offer from a non-tier 1 BB/EB investment bank (Barclays/BoA/Moelis) in the Bay Area, and I also have offers from some hot AI-adjacent startups and recently IPO-ed unicorns. Which path has a greater chance of getting me to VC?
Zero interest rate phenomena. A lot of things that could have been accomplished in the zero interest rate environment we were in might not be feasible for another person to replicate in our current environment
I think the key point is they were likely early employees at very successful startups. As a result, they got to sit on the other side of the table in many VC deals. Although this may not be scientifically backed up, many VCs believe that being an early employee or founder at a very successful startup means better knowledge in the ecosystem. Hence, the success of people you mention. I know people who (albeit this was during the COVID boom) went from engineering director / VP at high growth startups to starting their own funds.
Go to Stanford is basically it
VC is very broad. There’s a lot of funds of different sizes. A lot of times it’s more based on who you know.
Why we need networking for VC?
Anyone in their 20s and working in VC is mainly a grifter. With minimal life and professional experience, no one should be a VC. But last decade gave us lots of bubbles. “Becoming a VC” was one of them
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