This interview with Aileen Lee, founder and partner of Cowboy Ventures, a venture capital firm, was conducted and condensed by Adam Bryant.
Q. What were some early influences for you?
A. I’m the firstborn child of parents who immigrated here from China. They came from pretty much nothing in terms of financial resources and education. My dad moved to the United States when he was in high school and was able to go to college and med school, even though he had only been learning English for a couple of years.
I’ve heard lots of stories of how many jobs everyone in my family had and how hard they worked. And so I always grew up feeling a lot of gratitude for all the sacrifices and all the hard work they had gone through so that I would not have to work so many jobs. I have a real sense of motivation from wanting to make sure that everything that they went through was worth it.
When you were younger, what kind of things did you do outside of class?
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