PM to VC?
Does anyone go from a career in Product Management at a top tech company to investing in VC? I am looking into a few technical career paths but want to keep a door open to VC later.
I've seen more people break in from PM at startups who can navigate the product building process from soup to nuts when you are finding PMF from within an organization that has all of its chips in 1 or 2 baskets. From large tech companies, I've seen more people who come from SWE backgrounds because they've been working at the cutting edge of a research function where there are often new technologies spun out.
If you want to optimize for being a VC, find and work at a company that becomes a reasonable success (e.g., you join at Seed or A and ride it to at least D or pre-IPO). Once you get into Series D, people's perceptions start to change from having back foot skepticism that you might be working at a zombie growth company into an inclination to believe that you are close enough to the public markets that you have some reasonable success story ahead of you.
It's not to say Google PM or equivalent to VC is not possible. I am sure there are many of the smaller VC funds that would gobble you up if you showed some general commercial acumen. I only mean to provide some observations about what I've seen.
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