Brad Feld has spent decades operating by a simple principle: Give without expecting anything in return. This philosophy goes beyond traditional pay-it-forward thinking, he says. It’s about helping others, knowing only that meaningful connections and opportunities will emerge organically over time if you do.
The entrepreneur and VC, who began angel investing in the 1990s, rose to prominence through his candid blog “Feld Thoughts,” which pulled back the curtain on the then-secretive venture industry and sparked countless discussions across Silicon Valley. After decades as an investor and co-founding both Techstars and the venture firm Foundry Group — which backed hundreds of companies over 18 years before deciding to stop raising new funds in early 2024 — Feld has distilled his approach to business and life into his latest book, “Give First.”
TechCrunch talked with Feld last week about mentorship, boundaries, and why vulnerability might be the most important leadership skill.
You’ve been thinking about this “Give First” concept for over a decade. What finally pushed you to write the book now?
This is my ninth book, and I was getting close to being done with writing nonfiction; I’m interested in exploring science fiction writing. The intersection of maybe this being my last book and really wanting to capture these ideas made me sit down about three years ago.
The concept emerged in 2012 in my “Startup Communities” book as a paragraph called “Give Before You Get.” The idea was that if you want a startup community to really move, you need people willing to put energy in without defining upfront what they’ll get back. It’s not altruism — they’ll get something, but they don’t know when, from whom, over what time period, or in what form.
You were once seemingly everywhere, then you pulled way back. After taking a two-year break from public life, what brought you back?
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I decided I didn’t want to be involved in anything public-facing. I was tired and burnt out. I focused on behind-the-scenes work, which meant [my wife] Amy and I were together all the time because I wasn’t distracted by other stuff. That’s been really satisfying.
When David Cohen came back as CEO of Techstars a year ago, I told him I’d engage as much as he wanted, but I still didn’t feel like being public. Working with him on strategy got me super deep back into it. I also took the [book draft] off the shelf, looked at it, and thought, “This is pretty good.”
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