Scott Sandell, Executive Chairman and Chief Investment Officer at NEA is truly one of the great venture capitalists of our generation. With nearly three decades at NEA he leads the field with a track record of dozens of successful investments including unicorns like Salesforce, Plaid, Workday, Robinhood, Cloudflare and Tableau. How has he done it? Scott shares his investment philosophy influenced by other greats like Dick Kramlich and John Doerr: understand an individual's life story, decision-making process, and future goals as key in making successful investment choices. Chapters: 00:02:17 What Are The Characteristics Of Unicorn Founders? 00:10:16 "I Look For Passion-Driven Missionaries" 00:16:05 Building Tableau's Success: Lessons in Slow, Purposeful Growth 00:27:13 Make Your Investors Your Partners. Navigating Board Relationships 00:40:55 The Era of Decreasing LP Commitments 00:52:39 Tyler and Sterlings Recap Connect with Scott and NEA Twitter: https://twitter.com/scottdsandell YT: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTU3mQDqk3QyB4WeDQwZ1YQ Connect with IO Pod Twitter: https://twitter.com/IO__podcast Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@io_podcast YT: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCayuY0VO95kQTUXJvh9T0oQ Website: https://www.investoroperator.io/ This episode of the IO Podcast is brought to you by Pelion Venture Partners https://pelionvp.com/