Donald Wood

In addition to his teaching at Stanford GSB, Don is Managing Director emeritus at the venture capital firm DFJ, venture partner at B Capital, and senior advisor to Energy Impact Partners and Piva Capital.  Don spent the first 20 years of his career as a consultant at McKinsey and as a founder and/or executive in Silicon Valley tech companies. The companies where Don held executive positions included IPT (energy cogeneration), Octel (leader in voicemail), FastMap (patented publishing format), and Metricom (Ricochet, the first wireless mobile data service).  He has been a venture capitalist for the last 25 years in partnerships that have invested in over 500 hundred technology startups, including 40 companies that have achieved valuations of over $1 billion (e.g. Tesla, SpaceX, SolarCity, Planet, Proterra, Ring, Athena Health, Vocera, Box, Redfin, Twilio, Skype, Network Appliance, Ciena). He has worked and invested in communications, enterprise software, consumer web, and climate tech. Don managed the DFJ Global Network with VC funds in China, Russia, Brazil, UK, Israel, Japan, Viet Nam, Korea, NY, LA, Chicago, and Houston. Don has served on 15 public and private Boards.  Don earned his BA and MBA degrees from Stanford.