Ron Conway on Angel Investing, Founder Advocacy and the Power of Relationships

Ron Conway says effective advocacy starts with recognizing a problem, deciding to solve it and having the conviction to follow through. Host Jack Altman introduces the SV Angel founder to an audience of seed investors and asks what they can learn from a career backing companies including Google, PayPal and Airbnb.

Conway traces his career from National Semiconductor through computers, software, the internet and now AI. In his judgment, the AI wave is bigger than the previous cycles combined, and its pace makes it hard even for experienced investors to keep track of everything.

After leaving San Jose State, he joined National Semiconductor when much of the Santa Clara Valley was still orchards. Colleagues later recruited him to Altos Computer, a microcomputer startup challenging established minicomputer makers. His first interview took place on the floor of an office with no desks.

Conway led sales while engineer and CEO Dave Jackson helped close difficult deals. Altos went public, creating unexpected wealth for Conway and his family. He recalls his wife calling in disbelief after a bank employee remarked on the size of a stock-sale deposit.

Success did not protect Altos from the next shift. Conway says it became complacent as networked personal computers displaced its multi-user systems, and the company was eventually sold to Acer. His lesson: if a company does not disrupt itself, someone else will.

Sequoia founder Don Valentine had backed Altos and joined its board. Conway remembers him valuing the company’s culture, which Conway considers a founder’s responsibility. After the sale, Conway realized he did not enjoy managing a large organization; Valentine suggested he attend board meetings and consider angel investing.

At the first meeting, Conway watched Valentine advise a founder and realized that his own operating experience might be useful. He began investing independently, later building a more institutional operation. Many early bets failed, he says, but they also taught him how to work alongside founders.

His first angel investment was Natural Language Inc., a Berkeley company working on an idea he now recognizes as an early form of AI. When the company ran short of payroll, its founders sought a home for the team. Conway recalls pressing Microsoft to complete an acquisition quickly.

Ask Jeeves was the investment that gave his angel career momentum. Ben Rosen sourced the company, and Conway joined Rosen and L. J. Sevin in helping its founders build it. Conway remembers their meetings less as formal board sessions than as practical company-building discussions.

Altman asks whether an angel should be passive or deeply involved. Conway’s answer is that SV Angel acts as an advocate for founders: helping them develop, recruit a team and face unexpected obstacles. To him, the relationship extends beyond a narrow set of financing questions.

He says that support can include helping founders and their families navigate personal emergencies, including access to medical expertise. His broader point is that a founder’s life and work cannot always be separated, so a trusted investor should be willing to respond when the problem is outside an ordinary business playbook.

Altman asks how Conway built a network that can help with executives, regulators and other needs. Conway prefers “relationship” to “power”: his firm aims to be available when founders call, even at inconvenient hours, and to connect them to people who can solve a specific problem.

Some relationships grew organically from his semiconductor career. As personal computers emerged, people from semiconductor firms moved to Apple and other companies; later, contacts moved from software into internet businesses. Decades of changes created a network across successive generations of technology.

Investments in companies such as Google, Twitter and Meta expanded that network further. Founders often need distribution relationships or help building management teams; Conway says introductions are easier when trust has already been built over years of working together.

Altman has watched Conway introduce people even when there is no immediate benefit to himself. Conway says he enjoys meeting people and connecting them, a habit Marc Andreessen has called being a “human router.” He remembers important introductions but then moves on to the next problem.

Conway says he helps founders beyond his own portfolio when he can. He recalls Zoom founder Eric Yuan thanking him years later for career advice given in a parking lot—advice Conway himself had forgotten. Altman argues that this orientation requires a sustained commitment rather than a single networking event.

The network can be built deliberately across industries. Conway says he explored media and Hollywood early, sometimes investing in audio and video before the market was ready. He met YouTube’s founders but did not invest; he recalls believing in video while recognizing the company’s legal and infrastructure challenges.

Conway also believes the tech industry should participate in civic life and explain its contribution to job creation. Building relationships with public officials takes time, he says. Altman adds that approaching people only when a transaction or urgent favor is needed rarely works.

SV Angel tries to become deeply involved at what Conway calls “inflection points,” rather than constantly looking over a founder’s shoulder. He describes the beginning of COVID-19 as such a moment for Airbnb: travel collapsed, the company faced painful decisions, and some advisers questioned whether funding was possible.

Conway recalls reassuring Brian Chesky and speaking with Airbnb’s founders about taking charge of their future. He says they found financing despite initial pessimism, including backing from Silver Lake. For him, the lesson is to make time for a founder when the stakes are existential.

The failure of Silicon Valley Bank in 2023 was, Conway says, one of the most consequential crises he worked on. He describes urging officials in Washington to protect depositors because startups depended on access to their funds. This is his account of his own advocacy, not an independent assessment of its effect.

The public record shows that on March 12, 2023, the Treasury, Federal Reserve and FDIC announced action to protect all SVB depositors, with access to funds beginning the following day. The agencies’ [joint statement](https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/pressreleases/monetary20230312b.htm) describes the decision and its funding arrangements.

Altman notes that Conway’s willingness to support people also includes a willingness to fight. Conway says it takes conviction and persistence to solve a problem. He cites the 2023 OpenAI leadership dispute as a case in which he believed founder Sam Altman had been treated unfairly and worked to reverse the outcome.

Conway describes himself as competitive and says that standing up for a founder can mean accepting that others will be angry. His phrase for the role is “fearless for founders”: when he believes a founder has been mistreated, he focuses on fixing the situation.

On portfolio construction, Conway says SV Angel has long invested thematically. In the early internet era, search became a theme as several companies appeared; business-to-business software was another. The firm typically watches a handful of themes and reviews companies that fit them.

Today, he says, AI is so broad that the firm needs themes within AI as well. The approach filters a large flow of companies while letting investors build knowledge around developments they find important and interesting.

Altman turns to Conway’s civic work and opposition to a proposed California wealth tax. Conway argues that the measure would burden founders and urges negotiation to prevent it from reaching the ballot. These are his political views and predictions at the time of the conversation.

Conway’s description of the proposed tax is broader than the measure described by California election officials. The [Secretary of State’s summary](https://www.sos.ca.gov/administration/news-releases-and-advisories/2026-news-releases-and-advisories/california-secretary-state-shirley-n-weber-phd-announces-new-measure-eligible-november-2026-general-election-ballot-imposes-one) says it would impose a one-time tax of up to 5% on certain individuals and trusts with covered assets over $1 billion; real estate and some retirement assets are excluded. The measure later qualified for the November 2026 ballot.

Conway says he wants the governor and competing interests to negotiate a different outcome. His account reflects an investor’s position in a contested policy debate; the election materials, rather than the interview’s shorthand, describe what the actual proposal would do.

Asked whether civic engagement began late in his career, Conway points to the fight over the SOPA and PIPA bills. He recalls being advised to speak publicly outside city hall, literally standing on a box for the cameras, and enlisting contacts to communicate the technology industry’s concerns.

Altman observes that advocacy costs time and energy and can make people angry, which may deter busy leaders even when they care about an issue. Conway returns to conviction: identify the problem, decide to solve it and be prepared to pursue the result.

The conversation ends with family. Conway says he did not ask his three sons to enter investing; each became interested independently. Topher initially sat in on the firm’s meetings while looking for a job, then found the work interesting enough to stay involved.

Altman sees working together as a way to maintain an adult relationship with one’s children. Conway says the family shares office space while his sons have their own ventures, and closes by returning to the common theme: they enjoy supporting founders.