Jeffery: Alright, welcome to the supporter’s fund, ask an angel. I’m your host Jeffery Potvin and let’s welcome our investor today which is John Derrick. Welcome. we’re very excited to have you here today john. I know we’ve had numerous conversations. I’m a big fan of all the things you’ve been doing and have done and what you’re going to probably end up doing, which is, who knows the future is going to hold a lot of bright things. I’m sure especially in the deep tech space but I think the best way for us to kind of start off and kick things off is I’d love to have you share a bit about kind of your past, where you’ve come from the things that you’ve kind of worked on through Yale, all these great things that you’ve done and I don’t want to list them all off because I’ll take away all the thunder but I know you’ve done a lot of great things. so please share that and then a little bit about where you are today and then one thing about you that nobody will know.
Derrick: Okay I’ll have to start thinking about that as I’m starting to talk. I’m gonna have to keep it somewhat secret so that it’s still something I’m okay with you guys knowing but that’s okay. I’ve been doing tech stuff now for about 30 years. I’ve started my career out actually as an electrical engineer, deep text-based doing radar systems, mathematics things like that, joined IBM, did about eight years there, lots of different shipping products, 19 patents at IBM, and then left IBM in 99. I started a company, raised about 5.3 million, sold for you know 10x that, something like that. and within 18 months went to venture funds and worked with a bunch of other companies. I started a second company. We sold that to intel. I went to California, led an IP semiconductor company, and grew that as a quickly public company, and then you know led about three other startups as the second CEO with another exit involved in all that. Additionally, I am always looking for something new, something challenging, to fix the puzzle, solve the solution. I always advised a bunch of other companies through that whole process. So I’ve also advised a few dozen different companies as a consultant, advisor, and board member, served on the board of intel capital investment for example, and software-defined radio among other things but about five or six other additional companies I’ve worked with. I have also been acquired through the years by Arm Netapp, Qualcomm, VMware, and others across all kinds of different spaces, so everything from material sciences, haptic devices, company cards by Chemist to pure software things required by VMware. so that’s a quick background. I have done diligence for literally hundreds of different companies across 20 or so different VC firms through the years, corporate and also just pure financial VCs.

Jeffery: amazing. so you pretty much spend a lot of your time, almost all your time in deep tech but also coaching, mentoring, and helping other companies work through the ecosystem at the same time.
Derrick: yeah. I would say the ratio between companies I’ve assisted to companies I’ve led has usually been six to one because I’m always mentoring, advising, and helping some other first-time entrepreneur coming out of, you know, some research project at Yale. a lot of things that they do I don’t fully understand. I mean I got a grasp of it. I don’t fully understand it. I understand it enough to give them advice on how to build your business, what do you need to worry about and how do you mitigate risk in terms of your funding or your productization of your technology. and so I enjoy that aspect of it. but at the same time, I have to have a full-time gig as well. Right. So, I do those as well. So you know technically, I guess at this point, probably have something that normal people might equate to three full-time gigs plus a few more but that’s fine. I enjoy that. so it’s all good to keep yourself busy. I like the 19 patents leaving IBM in 99 kinds of like the Gretzky thing so a very similar look which I like that I’m going to retire in 99. After all, I don’t know 8 million awards and 999,000 goals.
Jeffery: I think that sounds like the same structure before you left IBM.
Derrick: well I say I hope it’s not abnormal but I like to do new things period. I like to optimize. I like to make things happen that people don’t think can happen. That’s the key part of being an entrepreneur. But hopefully, in the process I figure out how I can make some money as well, whether as an investor or an entrepreneur or advisor or whatever.
Jeffery: So I think that’s a great approach. How much of what you learned and jumping into IBM helped you from that machine side of things? IBM has turned out many amazing entrepreneurs especially in the deep tech space. I know many people that have gone through the engine, the IBM engine. how much of that structure and learning do you think helped you and propelled you over the last well 22 years give or take?

Derrick: It’s interesting. so my first role was working at a company that is now part of Raytheon. It was the defense sector and they had a very casual technology-driven culture. you know, wear shorts to work. whatever else doesn’t matter. When I first joined IBM, it was quite free. A right to all of that. Right. So I was like an oddball. everyone else is in slacks, shirts, ties, and whatever else and I’m all wearing my Adidas or 501s, and just you know not sure. but I’m going to be comfortable. I’m going to do what I’m going to do. So that tech-driven thing was fine but when I joined IBM, there were so few people getting hired at IBM that they deferred my orientation class until they had enough people to do it. So when that came around, I was like I’m too busy to tell my boss. He told his boss that this guy can’t do it. he’s too busy doing stuff we need. I never got IBM-oriented