Steve Reale

I love to live on the horizon of the possible. Whether training for endurance bike races, skiing in big mountain terrain, or meeting with an entrepreneur who sees the world a little differently, I prefer to explore the edge of the comfort zone and do so with real commitment. I didn’t exactly stumble into this perspective; rather, I learned it from my parents. Dad was a Juilliard-trained concert violinist who ultimately became a doctor, a professor at a prestigious medical school, and a mentor to his students. Mom was an Olympic-level ski racer, a statistician, the president of the school board, and a gourmet cook while somehow managing to successfully raise three boys. Rarely was there a day in my childhood where one of my parents wasn’t pushing the limits, following their passions, or just excelling at being incredible people.

For over 25 years, I’ve been working in Silicon Valley and trying to live a life that embodies the ideals and lessons of my parents with my own personal twist. I’ve experience success as well as failure, and everything in between–including navigating journey obstacles that have left me stuck and needing to dig deep to work through the problem. I’ve learned that the entrepreneurial journey is a lot like the endurance cycling events that I know and love. Neither the bike race nor the startup journey is an overnight success or a linear process; there are bound to be periods of time where you just feel awful and want to pack it in and go home, yet pushing through is usually the better decision. Overcoming these types of challenges gives one the confidence to unlock one’s true abilities and finish strong.

I’ve been lucky enough to work alongside entrepreneurs and management teams from seed stage to growth stage, and even public businesses in software, tech-enabled services, communications hardware, and semiconductors. Over this crazy tenure that I call my career, I’ve been one of the first employees at a startup, worked as a CFO in a mid-stage tech company, and spent time with dozens of startups as venture capital investor, board member, advisor, and drop-in finance mercenary. It’s been an awesome ride, and one of the consistent themes that I’m gravitationally drawn to is the power of the seed stage. Only in seed do we get to witness an early glimpse of the next great thing and the people who bring those dreams to life.