Ron Conway, Founder, SV Angel

In the inaugural episode of The Social Radars, Jessica Livingston and Carolyn Levy interview Ron Conway, a prominent angel investor, about his early life and career. Ron recounts his entrepreneurial family background, including his grandmother's oil shipping business and his father's involvement in the shipping container revolution. He shares anecdotes from his childhood, such as working as a dishwasher and his adventures at the San Francisco Zoo. The discussion transitions to his professional experiences at National Semiconductor, where he learned the importance of work ethic and relationships, and later at Altos Computer, a microcomputer company that disrupted the minicomputer industry. Ron also touches on his interactions with Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer, and the lessons he learned from Altos' failure to adapt to the rise of personal computers. The episode concludes with a reflection on the competitiveness he developed throughout his career and a teaser for future episodes focusing on his angel investments.