Art by Mike Sullivan
April 7, 2022 6:00 AM PDT

Somebody forgot to send Oren Zeev the memo about how Silicon Valley venture capitalists are supposed to act. The investor has fewer than 3,000 followers on Twitter, where he rarely opines on the kinds of trending topics that light up venture land. He conducts meetings with startup founders at a two-story coffee shop in Palo Alto, Calif., Cafe Venetia, rather than in posh offices on Sand Hill Road. His greatest narrative violation may be that he doesn’t invest in crypto.

“I don’t have strong domain expertise and I don’t have the motivation to develop it,” Zeev said. “So why would a crypto company want to take money from me?”

And yet, the 57-year-old Israeli-American has quietly become a player in venture capital, despite operating as a one-man shop and having a tendency toward bluntness in conversation. In 2021 alone, Zeev—whose limited partners include Peter Thiel and top university endowments—invested $683 million and backed 10 new startups across two new funds, Zeev told The Information, a pace that exceeds that of more established VC firms. Around 80% of that money went to doubling and tripling down on earlier startup investments, according to fund documents viewed by The Information. That’s an unusual approach for a solo investor.

Get access to exclusive coverage
Read deeply reported stories from the largest newsroom in tech.
Latest Articles
 
Creator Economy
Twitter’s Tipping and Coin Features Are Disappearing
Photo via Bloomberg
Twitter over the last two years introduced several features to help creators make money off the platform. But in recent weeks, some have stopped functioning, throwing its efforts to court creators into disarray. Its 18-month-old tipping feature has disappeared from creators’ accounts on its website, but still appears on mobile, according to a review by The Information. The “coins” feature,...
Latest Briefs
 
OpenAI Temporarily Shuts Down ChatGPT After Privacy Bug Leaks Users’ Chat Histories
New Report to Australian Government Alleges ByteDance Poses Disinformation Threat
FTX Sues Liquidators of Bahamas Unit
Stay in the know
Receive a summary of the day's top tech news—distilled into one email.
Access on the go
View stories on our mobile app and tune into our weekly podcast.
Join live video Q&A’s
Deep-dive into topics like startups and autonomous vehicles with our top reporters and other executives.
Enjoy a clutter-free experience
Read without any banner ads.
Jamie Dimon, chief executive officer of JPMorgan Chase. Photo by Bloomberg.
Exclusive markets startups
How JPMorgan Maneuvered During the Fall of Silicon Valley Bank
When Silicon Valley Bank was crumbling last week, eyes turned to the biggest lender in the country—the bank that had stepped in to save failing competitors during the financial crisis in 2008, whose CEO has been called “America’s banker” and whose views and decisions influence the corporate world.
Sarah Nagy gives a demo of her startup, Seek.ai, at an AI event at the San Francisco Wine Society in January. Photography by Laura Morton
First Look startups ai
Boom Times in San Francisco’s AI Underground
Not even a banking crisis could chill the fever sweeping San Francisco. Last Wednesday, as the tech industry recoiled from the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, a party was scheduled at the offices of Maverick Ventures in an old army hospital in the Presidio.
Cover art and portraits by Clark Miller
The Big Read
The Instant Oral History of the Silicon Valley Bank Collapse
On a cosmic level, the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank was a mere blip. The murmurs about trouble began last Wednesday, the panic spread via group texts and Twitter threads on Thursday, the bank went under on Friday, the government got its act together on Saturday, and on Sunday every current and former customer of SVB could breathe a cautious sigh of relief.
A pedestrian passes a Silicon Valley Bank branch in San Francisco, on Monday, March 13, 2023. Photo by AP.
Exclusive startups venture capital
SVB’s $9.5 Billion Venture Unit Included Large Investments in Andreessen, Sequoia, Documents Show
As potential buyers circle the remnants of Silicon Valley Bank and its affiliates, one asset could be particularly appealing: the company’s venture capital arm.
Art by Clark Miller.
Opinion startups economy
SVB Is Dead. Long Live SVB.
We all know how it began. It started on March 9, when the run on Silicon Valley Bank made the innovation economy totter and threatened a global financial crisis.
Clockwise from top left: Julie Bornstein, Esther Crawford, Mark Hammond, Max Cutler, Kağan Sümer. Photos via Julie Bernstein, Robert Cowherd, Microsoft, Wikimedia and Kağan Sümer.
Free Agents startups
On the Market: The Founders Who Joined Microsoft, Spotify, Coinbase and Twitter
Call them acqui-fires. Several founders who took positions at the bigger tech companies that bought their startups recently lost their jobs when layoffs rolled through Silicon Valley.