Fireside Chat with Ben Congleton: My Journey from VT to SV: A couple of startup stories and some Q&A

Abstract

This is a fireside chat, not a formal talk. My goal is simple: I want you to leave thinking, "I could start a company someday."

I'll kick things off with a few stories about my path from Virginia Tech to Silicon Valley-from dropping out of grad school and going through Y Combinator to bootstrapping Olark. Then your questions take over, and we'll see where the conversation goes.

_Biography

 Ben Congleton is the CEO and co-founder of Olark, the live chat and AI customer engagement platform used by thousands of businesses. He studied at Virginia Tech from 2001 to 2006 and then started a PhD in Michigan. In 2009 he dropped out to co-found Olark, which went through Y Combinator's Summer 2009 batch alongside Stripe and Mixpanel, and just after AirBNB. He lives in Silicon Valley with his partner and 3 kids, occasionally angel invests, and likes to bike anywhere he can.