For a technology growth company, team building is the single most important task to scaling and building shareholder value.
Mark Bailey believes in the power of teamwork. His passion for it started while growing up as a scholar-athlete on Lake Mohawk in Sparta, New Jersey, where he learned teamwork as a co-captain and leader on the football field. He went on to co-captain the varsity football team at Princeton University. The spirit of teamwork carries over into everything he does at DFJ Growth and in life.Mark focuses on helping DFJ Growth's portfolio companies succeed. He started his career at HP, where the company's progressive team-oriented corporate culture made a strong impression upon him.
He worked in HP's optoelectronics division after graduating cum laude with a BSE in electrical engineering and computer science from Princeton University, and before earning an MBA from Harvard Business School.
He has since gained more than 30 years of experience in entrepreneurial deal making and company building in both investment and operating roles. He was an executive and corporate officer leading M&A at Symantec and Healtheon/WebMD. He also co-founded WebPartner and was an executive at Portal Software.
Mark was one of the first associates at Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers and a general partner at Venrock Associates. He has been at DFJ Growth since 2002. What attracted him initially was DFJ Growth's entrepreneurial culture, and that has never changed: "DFJ Growth has a spirit of big thinking, and a willingness to take calculated risks. When entrepreneurs visit, they quickly have a sense that they are among kindred spirits."
Mark is always seeking smart, self-aware entrepreneurial teams who have invented something faster, better, or cheaper. Mark believes true innovation is measured best by the extent to which a company can drive changes in habits in the marketplace. He admires the entrepreneurial spirit and the courage it takes to think big and set out on new paths. As a co-founder of DFJ Growth, he's proud of the accomplishments of the companies and teams backed by DFJ Growth over the past decade.