Dave Whorton is an experienced tech investor and funded founder who spent the first 20 years of his career at the highest levels of Silicon Valley venture capital and tech-boom startups. He started his career at Hewlett Packard and experienced the famous “HP Way” culture firsthand before he attended the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He joined the preeminent tech venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins and worked directly with John Doerr for several years before launching Good Technology and raising $63 million venture funding in the early 2000s. He brought in a CEO to run the company before it was sold to Motorola.
Dave joined the large tech private equity firm TPG and directed many investments there before creating his own small venture capital firm and making several investments in 2006. A few years later, Dave started to become disenchanted with the “Get Big Fast” of the venture capital approach. He talked to several founders who were growing businesses without any outside funding and were building better businesses with better cultures and better outcomes with no intent to ever sell their companies.
In 2013, Dave started the Tugboat Institute, a membership organization that brings together Evergreen® CEOs across industry sectors to share best practices and unique insights, and to develop trusted bonds for their respective Evergreen paths. Evergreen leaders are seasoned entrepreneurs, CEOs, and presidents with the vision, creativity, resourcefulness, patience, and grit to build and scale a business that will stay private indefinitely.
Best quote from Dave:
“These ‘evergreen CEOs’ are not trying to be cool kids. Their internal compasses are so strong that they’re not looking for external validation. They don’t need a venture capital firm to tell them they’re good. And the valuation of a funding round is irrelevant to them because they’re so focused on both their customers, who they’re trying to serve, and the employee experience.
If you do those two things well, you’re going to build a wonderful company. Profits will follow and you have the patience to allow yourself to grow over time at 10%, 15%, 20% a year, year after year for 30 years. So you’re going to be building something really meaningful and you won’t be subservient to anybody else. You’ll only be subservient to your belief and what’s important to delivering those values into your community.
It feels really good to be profitable and growing under your own fuel with no outside investors. It is a very liberating feel. You have nobody you are accountable to except for your employees and your customers. In most venture-backed companies you’re accountable to one thing and that’s the board of directors—your investors. And if they’re happy, you continue to keep your job. If they’re unhappy, you’re gone.
In this episode, Dave explains:
- How is early experience working for Hewlett Packard showed him the power of the people-first “HP Way” culture that empowered all employees to collaborate and create meaningful impact
- What he learned about the VC model working with top-tied Silicon Valley venture investors Kleiner Perkins and TPG
- How he was inspired by the more sustainable and people-first approach of creating large companies without any outside investors
- What it means to be an “Evergreen Company” who are building large and meaningful companies without any outside funding that are build to last for 100 years
- The power of independent, profitable and disciplined companies that grow to large companies with major impact over 10, 20, or 30 years
Tugboat Institute Company Facts
- Founded: 2013
- Description and Mission: Tugboat Institute® is a membership organization that brings together Evergreen® CEOs across industry sectors to share best practices and unique insights, and to develop trusted bonds for their respective Evergreen paths. Evergreen leaders are seasoned entrepreneurs, CEOs and presidents with the vision, creativity, resourcefulness, patience and grit to build and scale a business that will stay private indefinitely. We exist to support these leaders and their companies.
- Number of Employees: 10
- HQ: Sun Valley, Idaho
