Best of Corporate Venturing Insider 2025: The Judgments that Mattered When the Stakes Were Real

By Nicolas Sauvage

In 2025, I had the privilege of hosting an extraordinary set of voices on Corporate Venturing Insider: investors, operators, academics, and ecosystem builders who live corporate venturing every day.

As the year starts, our team distilled the conversations into a ~20-minute “Best of 2025” video. Not a highlight reel of soundbites, but a carefully curated arc of judgment: how serious corporate venture leaders think, decide, lead, and stay grounded when complexity is unavoidable.

Here’s what the video covers:

💥 On when financial success can destroy strategic value @Thomas Hellmann reminds us that even “doing venture right” financially can harm the mothership if incentives are misaligned.

👀 On presence as a form of leadership @Victoria Slivcoff shares a powerful lesson on attention, respect, and how leaders truly show up.

🧠 On having a prepared mind to move with conviction @Jeff Bussgang explains why speed comes from preparation, not shortcuts.

🌱 On measuring impact that actually changes outcomes @Lisa Hehenberger reframes impact as causal, evidence-based, and intentional — not cosmetic.

📈 On what really predicts the next round of capital @Steven Kaplan draws a sharp line between early belief in people and later proof in the business.

🤝 On trust as a path to strategic optionality @Megann Vaughn Waters shows how being a good partner compounds into long-term outcomes.

❤️ On why great CEOs don’t need to be jerks @Steve Westly reminds us that kindness, mission, and longevity are not opposites of performance.

🧩 On investing in the founder and the team, not just the idea @Bonny Simi grounds venture in mission-driven execution and real teams.

🔍 On why sourcing beats picking @Angela Lee challenges one of the most persistent myths in venture.

⚖️ On holding optimism and pessimism at the same time @Temple Fennell names the core psychological tension every investor must live with.

💰 On why information is already in the price @Matt Rhodes-Kropf brings market discipline and intellectual honesty to the foreground.

⏳ On patience learned from Intel Capital’s founder @Tammi Smorynski shares wisdom earned through cycles.

🏭 On starting with real business needs, not startups @Alexandra Renner shows how venture clienting works when done right.

🧭 On clarity creating permission to move @Annie Goman closes with a powerful reminder: speed follows clarity, not the other way around.

This video exists because each of these leaders generously shared their learnings and golden nuggets. Not to promote themselves. But to help raise the bar of the corporate venturing ecosystem, in service of entrepreneurs and their motherships.

You can imagine it was impossible to include everyone we interviewed in a single video we wanted to keep to ~20 minutes, but I am deeply grateful to every guest who contributed their insights throughout the year.

Thank you again to all of my guests this year!

If you care about building a better Corporate VC, serving founders well, and making corporate venturing a true force for long-term value creation, I hope you’ll enjoy watching and reflecting on Best of Corporate Venturing Insider 2025. 🙏