Oren Etzioni joined Madrona as a venture partner in 2000. He is an adviser and board member for The Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence and the technical director of the AI2 Incubator. He is also a professor emeritus at the University of Washington Allen School. Oren is an acknowledged expert on not just the technology of building with AI but the societal impacts. He is quoted widely in popular science and business publications, from Wired to the New York Times, and he speaks often on this topic in public forums.

Journey to Madrona

Oren was the founding CEO of the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence, building the organization for over nine years before stepping down in 2022. While at AI2, Etzioni built the AI2 incubator and worked with Madrona, Sequoia, Kleiner Perkins, and Two Sigma to set up the AI2 fund. During his tenure, more than 20 companies spun out, including xnor.ai (funded by Madrona and acquired by Apple).

Oren has founded and co-founded several companies, including Farecast (sold to Microsoft in 2008) and Decide (sold to eBay in 2013), and he is the author of over 200 technical papers that have garnered roughly 50,000 citations.

Lessons learned

1. Life is too short to work on a project you’re not incredibly excited about.
2. The best way to predict the future is to invent it (Alan Kay).
3. An ounce of data is worth a pound of my intuition.

When he’s not in the office…

He plays basketball and bughouse (a four-person variant of Chess).

Noteworthy

Oren received his bachelor’s from Harvard in 1986 and his Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University in 1991. He has received several awards, including the ACL’s 10-year Test-of-Time Paper Award for two separate papers published in 2012 (2022), GeekWire’s Hire of the Year (2014), Seattle’s Geek of the Year (2013), the Robert Engelmore Memorial Award (2007), the IJCAI Distinguished Paper Award (2005), AAAI Fellow (2003), and a National Young Investigator Award (1993).

Len joined Madrona in January 2010. He is interested in software, hardware, and analytics systems that transform work and economics for big industries and consumer products that change how we see, hear, feel, and sense life. He most enjoys working with entrepreneurs on building their teams to last and scale.

Journey to Madrona

Len has served on the boards of 20+ early-stage companies and has been a director or executive at three companies that have completed initial public offerings. Before joining Madrona, Len was a partner at Frazier Technology Ventures, where he was directly involved in several investments, including Control4 and DocuSign. Prior to his career in venture, Len spent 16 years in the software industry, including as senior vice president at RealNetworks from 1996-2001 (RNWK-Nasdaq). Len’s team released four major versions of the RealSystem software platform and generated the majority of the company’s more than 100% annual revenue growth during the period. Before joining RealNetworks, Len was president of Creative Multimedia, Inc. (acquired by IHS- NYSE INFO). He started his software career in product management for Central Point Software before it was acquired by Symantec (SYMC- Nasdaq).

Lessons learned

1. Breakthrough technology and market ideas should make you a little uncomfortable. Disruptive products that revolutionize the way people do things will include risk. Identifying the risks and developing execution plans to overcome them is crucial.
2. Investing in a compelling initial market, product, and strategy is important. But markets, customer dynamics, platforms, and competition will change, so the essential factor is backing a team with exceptional abilities to consistently identify new market opportunities, products, and go-to-market strategies to reach them. The people who create, reinvent and execute the playbook are more important than the playbook.

When he’s not in the office…

Len is past president of the Seattle Country Day School Board of Trustees, a founding board member of Seattle United Soccer Club, and has coached and played soccer his entire life. He enjoys spending time trying to keep up with his four children, runs occasionally and is remembering how to play tennis.

Noteworthy

Len graduated magna cum laude from the Eccles School of Business at the University of Utah with bachelor’s degrees in finance and economics.

Ted is now in his third chapter at Madrona, having transitioned from his role as chief product development officer at UiPath in early 2023. Ted brings decades of experience leading high-performing product and engineering teams to the venture partner role, where he focuses on evaluating new investments and advising portfolio companies and their leaders. Ted is passionate about the enterprise and focuses on investments in infrastructure & platforms, data & analytics, and intelligent applications.

Journey to Madrona

Ted first joined Madrona in 2013 as he ended a 23+ year career at Microsoft. He held several roles leading development organizations that built operating systems, consumer online services, enterprise security, enterprise application platforms, and data platforms. In his last role, he was corporate vice president of Microsoft’s Data Platform Group. He led the development of several key Microsoft enterprise products, including SQL Server, SQL Server Parallel Data Warehouse, SQL Azure, and Microsoft’s business intelligence and big data offerings. Prior to Microsoft, Ted worked as an engineer for Apple and Hewlett-Packard.

After his first chapter at Madrona, Ted joined Apptio — a Madrona portfolio company that created the Technology Business Management category. During his four years at Apptio, which included Apptio’s successful IPO in 2016, Ted built a world-class engineering and product team and transformed Apptio’s core platform from a custom solution to distinct SaaS applications, extending Apptio’s market and product portfolio.

After his second chapter at Madrona, Ted joined UiPath in early 2020 as chief product development officer. UiPath is a pioneer and leader in the RPA category and was also a Madrona portfolio company. At UiPath, Ted was responsible for the vision and strategy for UiPath’s automation platform and delivering that for both customer-managed software deployments and via the Automation Cloud, UiPath’s multi-tenant SaaS offering. In addition to his core responsibility of leading products and engineering, Ted was also responsible for IT, security & trust, and product support. During his three-year tenure, which included UiPath’s successful IPO in 2021, he led a major platform expansion that included multiple acquisitions.

Lessons learned

1. Software is a people business. If you study the most successful software companies, you will always find they have incredible people and an environment that lets them do their best work.
2. Pay attention to your muscles. Many failures to “maximize your opportunity” come when you failed to evolve your processes and capabilities to your new reality – whether that’s the number of products, the size of your team, the size of your code base, the size of your business, or related to a new delivery model.
3. Have fun. Software companies are uniquely intense – what other industries so frequently self-disrupt? We do it because we love the intensity, but you also need to pay attention to the long game. Maintain balance in your life, and remember to take a breath and have fun.

When he’s not in the office…

Ted is a rabid soccer and Sounders fan. He loves to run and exercise, which also helps with his love of great food and wine. He and his wife, Pam, raised three boys that are all on their own, but they spend as much time with them as possible.

Noteworthy

Ted is a passionate Husky and graduate of the UW electrical engineering department, where he currently chairs their Industry Advisory Board. Ted also serves on the board of directors of SingleStore.

Dan joined Madrona in 2015 and became a venture partner in 2021 when he co-founded Plus, a Madrona portfolio company that allows users to automate their reporting workflows using AI.

Journey to Madrona

Prior to joining Madrona, Dan worked at the Boston Consulting Group. At BCG, Daniel worked on strategy and technology projects, from developing go-to-market strategies for cloud vendors to deploying new technology systems to improve insurance claims processing.

Lessons learned

1. Being a founder is hard. No one really sees the day-to-day data or feels the ups and downs the same way you do, but great investors can be a sounding board to help you zoom out and focus on the things that matter the most.
2. Find the right environment to do great work. You’ll do your best work and be happiest when you work with people you enjoy working with, solve problems you are passionate about, and make sure you are always learning new things.
3. Don’t waste your time on decisions everyone else has already made. There are plenty of exceptions to the rules, especially in the startup world. But you’ll save a lot of time trying conventional wisdom first (e.g., ship early, spend more time talking to customers, picking SaaS tools) and then identifying the key areas where you want to be different.

While he’s not in the office…

Dan loves trying new restaurants, playing with his infant son, and trying to stay fit on his bike. He is also active in the Seattle community and founded the Pacific Science Center’s Associate Board.

Noteworthy

Dan graduated summa cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania with majors in finance, psychology, and international studies.