Entrepreneurial

– The following profile is an abbreviated version of Venture Capital Journal contributor Deborah Gage’s piece for the the VCJ’s series on “Hot Prospects” within the venture capital industry. –

Ken Howery’s first office after college was in a broom closet at 3000 Sand Hill Road – and no, he wasn’t the janitor. He and his new boss, Peter Thiel, who was running hedge fund Thiel Capital International, wanted a Sand Hill Road address. Even though the broom closet was the only space available, it was still on Sand Hill, and the more prestigious part at that.

“The broom closet was maybe 10 feet wide,” Howery said. “We had a desk, and any time somebody had to go to a meeting, they had to suck in to get out the door.”

Today, Howery and Thiel still work together as co-founders of the Founders Fund, but this time each has his own office at San Francisco’s picturesque Presidio. Howery, who calls Thiel his mentor, has worked with him for a dozen years on several enterprises, the most successful of which was PayPal, which the duo co-founded with several others in 1998.

Howery was PayPal’s first CFO and figured he’d work at the company maybe six months. Instead, he helped build the company for four years, until it went public in February 2002 and was bought by eBay four months later for about $1.5 billion.

– The following profile is an abbreviated version of Venture Capital Journal contributor Tom Stein’s piece for the the VCJ’s series on “Hot Prospects” within the venture capital industry. –

Phin Barnes’ first entrepreneurial endeavor did not exactly go according to plan.

In 2003, the former college basketball player co-founded ResponDesign, a developer of fitness games for consoles like the Xbox and Play Station 2. With its first game, Yourself!Fitness – which was based on Barnes’ concept of a “virtual personal trainer on a game console” – the company blazed trail for a whole new category of fitness games, including the wildly popular Wii Fit.

– The following profile is an abbreviated version of Venture Capital Journal contributor Deborah Gage’s piece for the the VCJ’s series on “Hot Prospects” within the venture capital industry. –

At age 33, Alex Kinnier was rising quickly through the ranks at Google, but he didn’t feel fulfilled. The chemical engineer wanted to help the world with clean technologies. A phone call with popular venture capitalist Vinod Khosla that lasted several hours put him on the path to happiness.

Kinnier took a pay cut to join Khosla Ventures, but he was thrilled to be back in the cleantech arena. When he got the urge to leave to start a company, Khosla talked him into staying and becoming a venture capitalist.

– The following profile is an abbreviated version of Venture Capital Journal senior editor Joanna Glasner’s piece for the the VCJ’s series on “Hot Prospects” within the venture capital industry. –

Ann Miura-Ko has been in the epicenter of startup innovation since the fifth grade. That’s when the now 33-year-old partner in newly formed Floodgate Fund (formerly Maples Investments) moved to Palo Alto, California, where her father worked as a rocket scientist at nearby NASA-Ames.

After graduating from Yale, Miura-Ko followed a well-worn VC path, taking a job with consulting firm McKinsey & Co. A couple years into that job, Miura-Ko met her future mentor, Ted Dintersmith, a partner at Charles River Ventures. CRV had posted an ad for an analyst on the McKinsey job board, and Miura-Ko applied for and won the position.

– The following profile is an abbreviated version of Venture Capital Journal contributor Deborah Gage’s piece for the the VCJ’s series on “Hot Prospects” within the venture capital industry. –

Chi-Hua Chien’s first experience with VC wasn’t pleasant. Nearly every morning for an entire week, at 7:00 a.m., he was summoned to a meeting with the backers of Coremetrics, who were threatening to shut down the faltering dot-com.

Coremetrics ultimately worked through its problems – just two months ago IBM said it would buy the company. And Chien’s performance during the company’s troubled period was not lost on Peter Fenton, then a partner of Accel Partners, one of Coremetrics’ backers.

– Lawrence Aragon is the Editor-in-Chief of Thomson Reuters publication the Venture Capital Journal and compiled this list with the help of his VCJ staff of editors and contributors. –

Let me introduce you to 10 young venture capitalists who are poised to do great things. All of our “Hot Prospects” are 35 years old or younger and all have yet to make their mark in VC.

While you may not be familiar with Chi-Hua Chien, 32, of Kleiner Perkins, Phin Barnes, 34, of First Round, Alex Kinnier, 33, of Khosla Ventures, Ken Howery, 34, of Founders Fund or Ann Miura-Ko, 33, of Floodgate, we’re sure you will be in the next several years.