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FORTUNE.COM // JULY 2019
EARING A LONG-SLEEVE BL ACK SHIRT, blue shorts, a knee brace on his right
leg (basketball injury), and a backpack filled with water bottles and an
emergency water-filtration straw (don’t ask), Jeff Jordan appears from
behind a line of trees. Lean bordering on gaunt, with closely cropped
black hair, Jordan has already hiked 40 minutes in the woods before
arriving for a scheduled walk-and-talk on a trail near his home in
Portola Valley, Calif. “Sorry,” he says. “I wake up really early.”
Jordan, who is 60, savors his alone time in the morning. Office hours
are at the nearby venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, where
he meets with entrepreneurs, listens to pitches, and decides which
of these prospects are worthy of the firm’s backing. But in the wee
hours, he typically sets out alone. “I have to be an extrovert at work.
So to recover, I just walk through the hills,” he says, before making the
W shocking confession, at least in the type A world of Silicon Valley VCs,JEFF JORDAN has had his ups and downs as an operating
executive in Hollywood and Silicon Valley. Now those decades
of experience are making him a sought-after mentor for young
entrepreneurs as a venture capitalist. Here’s how what Jordan
learned at Disney, eBay, and OpenTable is helping founders at
Airbnb, Pinterest, and Instacart.BY POLINA MARINOVA
The VCWho’s SeenIt All
Before