When Tugboat Institute® CEO Dave Whorton began his career at Kleiner Perkins, he was presented a “playbook”—a guide that defined early venture capital (VC) investment as a strategy focused on profitability and sustained growth. In 1995, with the historic public offering of Netscape, that playbook was thrown out and VC entered a new era. Get big fast.

In this talk from Tugboat Institute Summit 2021, Dave shares his personal experience of witnessing that “moment of divergence” and how that seismic shift in VC investment shaped the way companies are built, scaled, financed and exited along with how that deviation impacted CEOs, employees, customers, suppliers and communities. Dave also describes how private Evergreen® companies offer leaders, teams, and society an alternative model of doing business—one that recognizes the role of business as a force for good.