Events

​We invite female and non-binary founders to join Pear VC Founding Managing Partner, Mar Hershenson, for an AMA breakfast in Santa Monica.  We are keeping this event tight so that attendees can ask Mar anything about the ins and outs of becoming a successful entrepreneur. Mar is a Stanford PhD, 3x founder, founding member of Equity Summit and All Raise, Founding Partner of Pear VC, and on the Forbes Midas List (#30). 

​Location and other details will be sent along with email confirmation.

​We're a premier pre-seed and seed stage VC firm that partners with entrepreneurs from day zero to build category defining companies. We've invested in top-tier companies including, Doordash, Senti Bio, Guardant Health, Gusto, Branch, Aurora Solar, and so many more. We're company builders: we help companies find product-market fit, recruit their first engineering hire, and overcome other critical business challenges. Learn more about us at: 

 - a week of events hosted by VCs and startups to celebrate the growing LA ecosystem.

We're proud to partner with organizations that share our passion for helping early stage founders succeed. Here's a bit about them in their own words:

 - SVB is fundamentally different than other banks. While we offer modern banking products designed for tech, life science and healthcare founders, that’s just the start. Our team of 75+ startup banking experts can help you maneuver the fundraising maze, connect with investors, and provide candid advice on how to increase the probability of your success. Founder-focused. Digitally forward. Human-to-human. We’re the bank of you.

​NOTE: Registration does not guarantee a spot for the event. Invites + exact location will be sent out with your registration 

#LATechWeek: Female Founder AMA Breakfast with Pear VC's Mar Hershenson

Friday, August 19th 10:00 am - 12:00 pm PT

Join us for brunch in Santa Monica for great food and a conversation between 

Pear's Founding Managing Partner Pejman Nozad (#15 on the Forbes Midas List) and Stanley Tang, CPO and Co-Founder of Doordash. 

They'll discuss how to grow a tech company from seed stage to IPO. We welcome any founders who would like to learn the ins and outs of growing a business from the ground up.

Arrive early as elevators take some time to transport folks to the roof!

Location and other details will be sent along with email confirmation.

Pear VC is a pre-seed and seed stage VC firm that partners with entrepreneurs from day zero to build category defining companies. We've invested in top-tier companies including Doordash, Gusto, Branch, Guardant Health, Aurora Solar, Vanta, Affinity and so many more. We're company builders, having founded 10 companies: we help companies find product-market fit, recruit their first engineering hire, and overcome other critical business challenges. Learn more about us at: 

We're proud to be supported by these organizations that share a passion for helping early-stage founders succeed:

 - They're more than a bank; they're an advocate for every client's vision. They invest in people and grow more than just money. PacWest partners with leaders to help them identify the right products and services for their business needs. 

 - Legal advisers to disrupters – particularly in the technology, life sciences, and high-growth industries – they see firsthand the power of innovation and invest significant time and resources in implementing and developing the tools, systems, and infrastructure necessary to dramatically transform the client experience. Pear has worked with Cooley since our inception.

#LATechWeek: Pear VC Brunch with DoorDash Founder

We invite female and non-binary founders to join Pear VC Founding Managing Partner, Mar Hershenson, for an AMA lunch in NYC. We are keeping this event tight so that attendees can ask Mar anything about the ins and outs of becoming a successful entrepreneur. Mar is a Stanford PhD, 3x founder, founding member of Equity Summit and All Raise, Founding Partner of Pear VC, and on the Forbes Midas List (#30).

​​The brunch will be in Midtown Manhattan. Specific details will be sent along with email confirmation.

​​We're a premier pre-seed and seed stage VC firm that partners with entrepreneurs from day zero to build category defining companies. We've invested in top-tier companies including, Doordash, Senti Bio, Guardant Health, Gusto, Branch, Aurora Solar, and so many more. We're company builders: we help companies find product-market fit, recruit their first engineering hire, and overcome other critical business challenges. Learn more about us at: 

​NOTE: We have limited spots for lunch. Registration does not guarantee a spot for the event. Invites + exact location will be sent out with your registration 

NYC Female Founder AMA Lunch with Pear VC's Mar Hershenson

Pear VC's Fall Speaker Series invites Silicon Valley superstars to share their wisdom with our founder community. 

We are kicking off the beginning of the Fall Speaker series with the first installment: a conversation between Andy Fang CTO and Co-Founder of DoorDash and Pear’s Founding Managing Partner Pejman Nozad on October 5th at 5:30 PM at Pear HQ. 

Hear the inside scoop of what it was like to start a company as a full-time student and the journey to growing it to a publicly-traded $20B company. 

 is a pre-seed and seed stage VC firm that partners with entrepreneurs from their earliest days to build category defining companies. We've invested in top-tier companies including Doordash, Gusto, Branch, Guardant Health, Aurora Solar, Vanta, Affinity and so many more. We're company builders, having founded 10 companies: we help companies find product-market fit, recruit their first engineering hire, and overcome other critical business challenges.

​We're proud to be supported by PacWest, which shares a passion for helping early-stage founders succeed:

 - They're more than a bank; they're an advocate for every client's vision. They invest in people and grow more than just money. PacWest partners with leaders to help them identify the right products and services for their business needs.

Pear VC Speakers Series: DoorDash's Andy Fang

Pear VC is pleased to be hosting a Fall speakers series in our Menlo Park office. We have invited prominent tech leaders to join us for conversations on effective leadership, entrepreneurship, and lessons learned throughout their careers. On October 12th, we'll host a conversation between Dropbox Co-Founder Arash Ferdowsi and Pear Principal Keith Bender. Space is limited so please RSVP.

​​We're proud to be supported by PacWest, which shares a passion for helping early-stage founders succeed:

Pear VC Speakers Series: Dropbox Co-Founder Arash Ferdowsi

​Join us for Demo Day at Filoli Gardens! This is our first in-person Demo Day since the start of the pandemic, and we couldn't be more excited to see all of our friends in-person after so long and to introduce the 12 amazing teams in the Pear S22 cohort. 

Following the Demo Day pitches in the Lecture Hall, we’ll be throwing a garden party in the gardens with food, drinks, and a jazz band. You will have the opportunity to meet our founders face-to-face, which is something we’ve all been missing over the last two years. 

Due to the capacity constraints at the venue, space is extremely limited and unfortunately we won't have room for everyone.

 We can host 150 people in person, so please RSVP as soon as possible. ​

Other details will be sent along with email confirmation.

Our small batch Accelerator has a strong track record.  A few of our notable alumni include: Xilis, 

, Affinity, Wagr, and Nova Credit. Out of the 77 companies that have gone through our Accelerator, 12 are worth $100M+ and 1 is worth $1B+. 

​Pear VC is a pre-seed and seed stage VC firm that partners with entrepreneurs from the earliest days to build category defining companies. We've invested in top-tier companies including Doordash, Gusto, Branch, Guardant Health, Aurora Solar, Vanta, Affinity and so many more. We're company builders, having founded 10 companies: we help companies find product-market fit, recruit their first engineering hire, and overcome other critical business challenges. Learn more about us at: 

​We're proud to be supported by these organizations that share a passion for helping early-stage founders succeed:

In-Person Pear Demo Day at Filoli Gardens

Pear VC is pleased to be hosting a Fall speakers series in our Menlo Park office. We have invited prominent tech leaders to join us for conversations on effective leadership, entrepreneurship, and lessons learned throughout their careers. On October 19th, we'll host a conversation between Sequoia Capital's Doug Leone and Pear Founding Managing Partner Pejman Nozad. Space is limited so please RSVP.

Pear VC Speakers Series: Sequoia Capital's Doug Leone

Pear VC is pleased to be hosting a Fall speakers series in our Menlo Park office. We have invited prominent tech leaders to join us for conversations on effective leadership, entrepreneurship, and lessons learned throughout their careers. 

On October 19th, we'll host a panel of former GSB founders who have gone on to start their own successful companies. Please join us to hear from this entrepreneurs. Space is limited so please RSVP. We'll be hosting a fireside chat with the founders of 

Pear VC Speakers Series: GSB Founder Panel

We're excited for the return of our Annual General Meeting after four years of it happening virtually!  We look forward to the opportunity to meet with our LPs across Funds 1-4 to provide an update on the capital pool and our portfolio. 

We've invited many of our founders to present about their companies so you can get a feel for our different verticals. We'll be at two great venues in San Francisco: we'll hold the meeting at The Pearl in Dogpatch during the day then head over Shack15 at The Ferry Building for cocktail hour and dinner, which has sweeping views of the Bay Bridge. Please plan on staying in SF for both events!

The Pearl - The Dogpatch Neighborhood: 601 19th Street - 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM

Shack15 - The Ferry Building: 1 Ferry Building Ste 201 - 6:00 - 10:00 PM

Pear Annual LP Meeting

We are so excited to invite you to our annual Founders and LP Dinner celebration on November 3rd at Shack15, upstairs at the iconic Ferry Building! 

Join us for a night of food, drinks, a great DJ, and games. It's a great opportunity to meet Pear's LPs and connect with your fellow Pear founders. Please feel free to extend this invitation to your co-founders.

Pear VC Annual Founders & LP Dinner 

Please join us for our Pear Bioreactor: Bench to Business speakers series with Kristen Fortney, CEO / co-founder of BioAge Labs. In our Bench to Business speaker series we feature top leaders across the Life Sciences and BioTech industry. 

In this fireside chat, we'll learn more about Kristen's journey from a PhD student at University of Toronto, to a postdoc at Stanford, and then the founder and CEO at BioAge Labs, now a Series C-stage company developing treatments that target the molecular causes of human aging. We'll also her about the latest progress at BioAge Labs and where she thinks the aging field is headed.

We’ll be at Pear HQ in Menlo Park and will provide food and drinks. See you there!

Kristen leads BioAge Labs in its mission to develop a broad pipeline of therapies that target aging in order to increase healthspan and address chronic diseases. Kristen draws from a deep background in aging research and systems biology to develop BioAge's data-driven approach to identify and target the molecular pathways that drive aging. 

Kristen received her PhD in Medical Biophysics from the University of Toronto, followed by postdoctoral training at Stanford University where she was a fellow of the Ellison Medical Foundation / American Federation for Aging Research. She has over 10 years of experience developing novel bioinformatics approaches for data-driven investigation into the mechanisms of aging and age-related disease, with 18 published papers spanning computational drug discovery, biomarkers of aging, and the genetics of exceptional human longevity.

Pear Bioreactor - Bench to Business with Pear VC

Pear VC is pleased to be hosting a Fall speakers series in our Menlo Park office. We have invited prominent tech leaders to join us for conversations on effective leadership, entrepreneurship, and lessons learned throughout their careers. On November 9th, we'll host a conversation between Aurora Solar Co-Founder and CEO Chris Hopper and Pear Partner Jill Puente. Space is limited so please RSVP.

Pear VC Speakers Series: Aurora Solar Co-Founder and CEO Chris Hopper

Pear VC is pleased to be hosting a Fall speakers series in our Menlo Park office. We have invited prominent tech leaders to join us for conversations on effective leadership, entrepreneurship, and lessons learned throughout their careers. On October 19th, we'll host a conversation between 

's Co-Founder Mada Seghete and Pear Principal Vivien Ho.  

Snacks and refreshments will be provided! Space is limited so please RSVP.

Pear VC Speakers Series: Branch Co-Founder Mada Seghete

Please join us for our Pear Bioreactor: Bench to Business speakers series with Dr. Timothy Lu, CEO and co-founder of Senti Bio. In our Bench to Business speaker series, we feature top leaders across the Life Sciences and BioTech industry. 

In this fireside chat, we'll learn more about Tim's journey from a PhD student at Harvard/MIT, to a professor at MIT, and then most recently the founder and CEO at Senti Bio, a publicly traded company developing a synthetic biology platform for next-generation cell and gene therapies. Along the way, Tim has founded several other companies including Sample6, Synlogic, and Tango Tx. We'll also hear Tim's perspective on the latest progress and challenges in the fields of synthetic biology and cell therapies.

Tim has served as CEO of Senti Bio since its cofounding in 2016. Since 2010, Tim has been an MIT faculty member in the departments of Biological Engineering and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. In addition, Tim has been a co-founder and a Scientific Advisory Board member to a number of biotechnology and biopharmaceutical companies, including BiomX, Corvium, Eligo Bioscience, Engine Biosciences, Synlogic and Tango Therapeutics.

Tim earned his M.D. from Harvard Medical School and his Ph.D. in Electrical and Biomedical Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology as part of the Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology Medical Engineering and Medical Physics Program. Tim has extensive experience in the field of synthetic biology and has received numerous awards: NIH New Innovator Award, US President Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, MIT Technology Review’s TR35, Navy and Army Young Investigator Prizes and others.

Please Join Pear VC and Comma Capital for a happy hour social at the Velvet Raven in SF! 

The event is hosted by Pear VC and Comma Capital!  Venue capacity is limited, so please RSVP as soon as you can. We can't wait to see you there! 

 is a pre-seed and seed stage VC firm that partners with entrepreneurs from their earliest days to build category defining companies. We've proud to have backed top-tier teams across industries and verticals, such as those at DoorDash, Gusto, Branch, Aurora Solar, Affinity and Vanta. We're company builders, having founded 10 companies: we help companies find product-market fit, recruit their first engineering hire, and overcome other critical business challenges.

Comma Capital was started by University of Pennsylvania alumni 

. Comma has built a community of 500+ millennial operators--from Snowflake, UiPath, Checkr, Robinhood, Flatiron Health, Amplitude, Stripe, Plaid, among others--who help with sourcing, diligence and portfolio support

Pear VC x Comma Capital Happy Hour 

This is an opportunity to ask Pear VC's Talent Partner and tech recruiting veteran, Matt Birnbaum, your most difficult and pressing questions about early stage hiring. We’ll spend the first 15 minutes of the talking through some of the most common questions our founder have and then open the session up to any and all questions you may have about hiring. Nothing is off-limits.

 is Pear VC's Talent Partner. At Pear, Matt and his team partner closely with founders to ensure they have access and the support needed to recruit top talent for their companies.

Matt started his career at a small financial services firm before venturing into tech, where he grew Wildfire (acquired by Google in 2012) from 15 to 400 employees. Matt then founded UpStart Talent, a boutique recruiting consultancy that specialized in supporting high growth startups like Stripe, Thumbtack, Plaid, and Asana. In 2018, Matt joined Instacart as the Head of Talent Acquisition, scaling the company from 300 to 3000 employees.

Pear VC's Talent Partner at GSB

We're gathering our community of mixed reality founders, operators, aficionados, and enthusiasts for a headset-free happy hour on Tuesday, 2/7 in our San Francisco office. RSVP below as space is limited; email 

Pear VC: PeAR/VR/XR Mixed Reality Mixer

We're excited for the next event in our co-founder roundtable series. Next up: Pedram Keyani! Pear's Talent Partner, Matt, will lead a discussion with Pedram on topics like:

We'll get the programming started at 6:00 PM. Once again, we'll also provide a Zoom link for those who are remote. This is an invite-only series for our CEOs, so please RSVP through this page.

Pedram is a Visiting Partner at Pear. Prior to joining Pear, Pedram led and scaled world-class engineering teams in companies like Uber and Meta. He's one of the leading experts in tech on growing and scaling a first-class engineering function and can share his perspective with CTOs and other co-founders.

Pear VC Roundtable Series: Pedram Keyani

, hosted by FabFitFun, for a panel on the ups and downs of building startups with the founders of 

. The unfiltered conversation will cover an idea and vision to unicorn valuations, millions of users, and even a few Super Bowl commercials along the way. Daniel Broukhim, Farhad Masoudi, and Mada Seghete will share the hard-won lessons they have learned on the journey to building companies worth $5B+. 

Pear VC Startup Series: How to Build 100M Customers

Join us for an interactive conversation on the true entrepreneurial opportunities in AI with

(Google Cloud Executive and Pear VC Visiting Partner), moderated by 

 (founder of Pear VC and Lean Launch Pad instructor). The Pear team will lay out where we see signal in all the AI noise and open it up for any and all questions you may have about AI. 

Which AI Startups will win?

For the next installment in Pear VC's Founder Speaker Series, we'll be joined by Jeff Jordan for an insightful talk on what it takes to grow a startup from the ground up. We'll be hosting this event on 

Wednesday, April 5th from 5:30-7:00 PM at Pear's office in Menlo Park (241 El Camino Real)

Jeff is a General Partner at a16z and previously held leadership roles at top tech companies including: CEO and Executive Chairman of OpenTable, SVP and GM of eBay, SVP of Finance at The Walt Disney Company, and more. He holds board positions at Airbnb, Instacart, Pinterest, and many other notable companies.

This is a great opportunity to speak with Jeff in a small group setting to hear his candid advice on everything from hiring teams to scaling your company. We're limiting this event to Pear's founders -- please RSVP here if you can join us. 

Pear VC Founder Speaker Series: Jeff Jordan, GP of a16z

Come and celebrate the great work of Persians in Tech at our new office! Attendees are invited to join the festivities with delicious Persian cuisine and great company.   

Pear VC: Persian Tech Food Truck Party

Join Pear VC's Aparna Sinha in a conversation on safe and efficient AI with Stanford CS PhD researchers Dan Fu and Eric Mitchell. Dan is co-inventor of FlashAttention and is doing seminal work in increasing context length in LLMs. Eric is co-author of DetectGPT, which was recently featured in various press outlets for its ability to distinguish between AI vs. human generated text. We will talk with Dan and Eric about new capabilities we can expect from LLMs and how they could impact the use cases for generative AI. 

 is a fifth-year Computer Science PhD candidate at Stanford, where he is co-advised by 

. In his research, Dan develops ML and systems algorithms to break crucial modeling bottlenecks. Recently, he's been very interested in enabling longer-sequence models, with a line of work starting with 

. In the past, he has also done work on labeling (

 is a fourth-year PhD student in Stanford’s CS department, where he is advised by 

. The goal of his research is to make the knowledge embedded in neural networks more reusable and updatable in an ever-changing world. Eric is interested in deep learning generally, as well as meta-learning and continual learning more specifically, particularly in the context large language models (or ‘Foundation Models’). 

Pear VC: Generative AI Mixer and Fireside Chat with Stanford Researchers

Please join Pear VC for an exciting after party on May 25th from 5p-8p following our Spring Demo Day. We are so excited to celebrate the hard work of our founders!

Pear VC: Demo Day After Party at Pizzeria Delfina 

**We're officially at capacity and have closed registration. For those of you who may have registered and cannot attend, please update your response so we can open up spots for others. Thank you.**

 - a week of events hosted by VCs and startups to bring together the tech ecosystem.

Please join us for brunch to hear Pear VC’s Talent Partner, Matt Birnbaum as he discusses the strategy and process behind hiring your first engineer. He will share advice on the right time, what you should look for, and how to find, attract, assess, and close your first hire. 

Matt has 15+ years of experience in the talent acquisition space having worked with several leading startups like Thumbtack, Stripe, and Plaid. He most recently led recruiting at Instacart, where he helped scale the team from 300 to 3,000. 

 is a pre-seed and seed stage VC firm that partners with entrepreneurs from their earliest days to build category defining companies. We've invested in top-tier companies including DoorDash, Gusto, Branch, Guardant Health, Aurora Solar, Vanta, Affinity and so many more. We're company builders, having founded 10 companies: we help companies find product-market fit, recruit their first engineering hire, and overcome other critical business challenges.

SF #TechWeek x Pear VC: How to hire your first engineer with Matt Birnbaum, Talent Partner at Pear VC

 - a week of events hosted by VCs and startups to bring together the tech ecosystem. 

Please join us for brunch to hear Pear VC’s very own partners Aparna Sinha and Arash Afrakhteh as they discuss and share insights on enterprise opportunities in generative AI. As leading voices in the field, Aparna and Arash are uniquely positioned to provide attendees with a wealth of knowledge and insights into latest trends, technologies and applications of generative AI. 

SF #TechWeek x Pear VC: Enterprise Opportunities in Generative AI Breakfast Mixer with Aparna Sinha and Arash Afrakhteh

Please join us for afternoon bites to hear Co-founder and CEO of Gusto, Josh Reeves as he shares his journey to success behind building a $10B startup. Since co-founding the company in 2011, Josh has been instrumental in helping transform Gusto into a leading $10 billion tech powerhouse. He will discuss what it takes to bring an idea from concept to fruition, alongside the challenges faced when scaling a company of this size. Through his leadership and innovative vision, he’ll share foresight into what drives a company from the ground up. 

SF #TechWeek x Pear VC: Building a $10B startup! A conversation with Josh Reeves, Co-founder and CEO of Gusto

Pear VC welcomes XR founders, builders, and enthusiasts for a lunch mixer and conversation about the future of mixed reality — AR, VR, XR — in the week of Apple's Vision Pro unveiling at WWDC.  

Escalon, together with acquired companies Early Growth and Full Stack Finance, is the one-and-done solution for all Essential Business Services (EBS), including FinOps (CFO services, bookkeeping and accounting), PeopleOps (human resources, benefits, recruiting and payroll) and Risk (business insurance). Since 2006, Escalon has helped over 5,000 companies across a range of industries and in 22 countries optimize their back offices. Escalon has been named to Inc. Magazine’s Inc. 5000 list five times over the past six years.

- a week of events hosted by VCs and startups to bring together the tech ecosystem.

LA #TechWeek x Pear VC: What Apple Vision Pro Means for XR

Pear Founders! Join us for an exclusive lunch and learn event with Laszlo Bock, the influential former Senior VP of People Operations at Google. As a renowned expert in talent management and workforce innovation, Laszlo will share invaluable insights and strategies to empower founders in building thriving company cultures and making data-driven hiring decisions. This will be a coveted opportunity to gain firsthand knowledge from one of the most influential figures in HR and leadership. His book "Work Rules!" shares insights from his time at Google and continues to influence HR strategies worldwide. Lunch and a copy of Laszlo's book will be provided to attendees. The format of the session with be a fireside chat with ample Q&A time. We will be keeping this limited to an intimate group of about 15 Pear founders, so please RSVP to secure your spot. 

 is a pre-seed and seed stage VC firm that partners with entrepreneurs from their earliest days to build category defining companies. Pear has backed iconic companies such as Doordash, Guardant, Gusto, Branch, Vanta, Aurora Solar, Nobell Foods and more at the earliest stages. We're company builders, having founded 12 companies: we help companies find product-market fit, recruit their first engineering hire, and overcome other critical business challenges.

Founder Lunch & Learn with Laszlo Bock at Pear VC

with Alex Pall of the Chainsmokers and Mantis VC! The 

is inclusive of prominent tech leaders and their insights on effective leadership, entrepreneurship, and lessons learned throughout their careers.

Please note this event will only feature Alex Pall.

GRAMMY® Award-winning RIAA Diamond-certified duo The Chainsmokers—Drew Taggart and Alex Pall—have not only left an indelible mark on music, but they’ve also strived to better the world as entrepreneurs, innovators, and philanthropists. They founded their very own Mantis Venture Capital in 2020. It manages nearly $1 billion in assets with a focus on improving the world and inventing a brighter tomorrow. Other businesses under their purview include a stake in the popular JAJA Tequila and The Chainsmokers’ very own film, television, and podcast production company, Kick The Habit Productions—which boasts a full slate of projects in development.  At the same time, Drew and Alex give back at every turn. In the midst of the Global Pandemic, Drew and Alex funded the production and delivery of tens of thousands of PPE N95 masks to hospitals in New York and Las Vegas. The charity Youth Emerging Stronger recognized The Chainsmokers with the 

 for their commitment to philanthropy and underprivileged children.

Pear Speaker Series with the Chainsmokers! Fireside Chat with Alex Pall of Mantis VC

Virtual: Pear Speaker Series with the Chainsmokers! Fireside Chat with Alex Pall of Mantis VC

​Please join Pear VC for an exciting after party on October 5th at 5:00PM following our Spring Demo Day. We are so excited to celebrate the hard work of our founders!

Pear VC: Demo Day After Party at Pizzeria Delfina

with Co-Founder and CPO of Doordash, Stanley Tang. The 

Stanley is the Chief Product Officer and co-founder of DoorDash, a technology company passionate about transforming local businesses and dedicated to enabling new ways of working, earning, and living. He founded DoorDash at the age of 20 while he was a student at Stanford and later graduated with a B.S. in Computer Science. Stanley was also named one of Forbes’ 30 Under 30.

Pear Speaker Series: Fireside Chat with Stanley Tang, Co-Founder and CPO of Doordash

with Co-founder and Head of EPD at Gusto, Edward Kim. The 

Edward's journey began with a foundation in electrical engineering at Stanford University. After co-founding a social networking startup called Picwing, Edward Kim's path led him to Gusto (formerly ZenPayroll). Here, he co-founded a platform that revolutionized human resources, payroll, and benefits administration for businesses of all sizes. Through his leadership, Gusto has become synonymous with user-friendly, efficient solutions that streamline HR tasks. Edward's dedication to leveraging technology for practical solutions has not only transformed how companies manage their workforce but also exemplified his commitment to improving workplace experiences. His story serves as an inspiration to those aiming to merge technology and business acumen to create lasting impact.

Pear Speaker Series: Fireside Chat with Edward Kim,  Co-founder and Head of EPD at Gusto

Alfred Lin is a Partner at Sequoia Capital, working with founders from idea to IPO and beyond. He partners with companies across various industries, including consumer marketplaces, fintech, robotics, and healthcare. He sits on the boards of Airbnb, DoorDash, Houzz, Citadel Securities, Catch, Found, Kalshi, Collaborative Robotics, Cobalt Robotics, Zipline, and more.

Before joining Sequoia in 2010, Alfred served as Chairman & COO of 

 (AMZN), VP of Finance & Business Development of Tellme Networks (MSFT), and VP of Finance of LinkExchange (MSFT). Alfred also co-founded Venture Frogs, LLC, and invested in companies such as Ask Jeeves (IACI), MongoMusic (MSFT), and OpenTable (PCLN).

Alfred has a B.A. in Applied Mathematics from Harvard and an M.S. in Statistics from Stanford.

Pear Speaker Series: Fireside Chat with Alfred Lin of Sequoia Capital

Calling all founders! Meet Midas List investors behind some of the most iconic tech companies and pitch your startup for a chance to win $25k. We will also be hosting a networking event afterwards with our famous Pear VC gelato truck! Please complete the application 

 and we will follow up with you individually. Applications close at the end of the day on 10/22. 

Meet the investors and some of their most high caliber investments:

 is a pre-seed and seed stage VC firm that partners with entrepreneurs from their earliest days to build category defining companies. Pear has backed iconic companies such as DoorDash, Guardant, Gusto, Branch, Vanta, Aurora Solar, Nobell Foods and more at the earliest stages. We're company builders, having founded 12 companies: we help companies find product-market fit, recruit their first engineering hire, and overcome other critical business challenges.