April Underwood
@aunder
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Managing Director and Cofounder, @adverbvc. 💚 Cofounder @hashtagangels. Ex CPO @slackhq; prev. @twitter @google. BOD @zillow @eventbrite. 🤘🏼🐻 🥳
Joined April 2007
When @Jess & I were launching @Adverbvc, we were eager for a day we could proudly display the humans we’d backed on our website. This month, we’re celebrating our two-year anniversary as a firm. We've backed 22 incredible companies, added 2 new team members (@LizaGurtin &.
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Every CFO who has ever insisted that a lot of business travel is frivolous is about to get the A/B test of their careers.
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Two days ago, after landing in Cabo, I got an Apple Watch high heart rate notification for the first time ever. 24 hours later, I started having abdominal pain. 48 hours later, I am now appendix-free.
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I will admit that the Slack use case of “new CEO publicly sharing screenshots of confidential internal information to destroy value for the company and inflict personal risk upon current or former employees” was not one I had the foresight to predict. Users surprise you!.
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News! . I started a company. (During COVID. Over walking phone calls and Zooms. A very 2020 founding story indeed.) . It’s called @LocalLaboratory. We’re on a mission to empower local businesses and the people who love them.
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Hear me out: an HGTV home makeover-style show for websites.
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Unsure if it was truly connected, but the alert made me take my symptoms more seriously. Wearable tech is amazing.
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I left my heart in San Francisco, and my appendix in Cabo San Lucas. Would be ok to stop this trend there.
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Meet our son, Sam. I know this sounds crazy but I honestly didn’t think it would be *that* hard. Give your mom or moms around you some love today.
Introducing Samuel Herrero Underwood. Born on January 1, 2018 at 1:13AM. Both he and @aunder are doing great. What a way to ring in the New Year!
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We Twitter alumni throw words like “legendary” around a lot. There’s a lot of love. And so many great people. But there’s one person whose intellect, fortitude, moral compass, and dedication truly stands out. And that’s my dear friend @vijaya. Hats off to a legendary 11+ years.
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Howdy. I’ve got some news to share that would normally be accompanied with a lot of ! and celebratory emojis. But we are in the midst of a heartbreaking period we will all likely remember and talk about for the rest of our lives. So I’m going to keep it simple. (1/5).
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Today, I am joining the team at @obviousvc as a venture partner, where I’ll invest in great companies seeking to solve the big problems facing humanity: our climate, human health and wellness, and how we work. (2/5).
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The single hardest thing in management is restraining yourself from subtweeting your management problems.
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Alternate headline, “After a successful acquisition and integration into IKEA, Task Rabbit CEO @sbp04 moves on to prepare for her next act. like virtually all hired CEOs ever.” . Amazing job, Stacy, and can’t wait to see what you do next.
News: Stacy Brown-Philpot @sbp04 is stepping down as CEO of @TaskRabbit. That's one less woman and one less person of color running a company in Silicon Valley. She will continue to serve on boards, and advise on the new @softbank opportunity fund.
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Also, I know I speak better French after a few glasses of wine. That Spanish Duolingo really showed up for me after anesthesia. I’m sure the whole room was very impressed.
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There is no camaraderie like meeting the other people doing crazy things to hit their airline status today.
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Living in the Bay Area is just a series of waves of all your best friends moving away.
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Team offsites are very important to motivate the team and such
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[Redacted political, software development, and musical references and puns.] We are having a baby! In December! We are very happy!
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Just reminiscing about when Kanye visited Twitter HQ in 2010 and berated us for not dressing nicer.
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📈📈📈 Shared some new milestones for us here at @SlackHQ: 8M daily active users, across 500K organizations. 70K paid customers, representing 3M paid seats. Customers ranging in size from Fortune 100 to dairy farms, across the world.
We recently celebrated our fourth anniversary, and more and more people are using Slack across every kind of team in businesses of all sizes. Here's our latest update on where work happens.
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My kiddo is 8 weeks old and this morning he really grinned for the first time and I’m pretty sure I could overturn a vehicle with my bare hands right now
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So proud + grateful to have been a part of the $WORK team. Today is just a moment in time which will soon fade into memory, and for employees who start next week, will only be myth! But today is a meaningful milestone for so many employees - I must say, some damned fine humans.
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*Picks up phone after hours of meetings* . Woah, what happened?! ☺️. Grateful for the opportunity to lead a conscientious, talented, and hard-working product organization on something so many of you care about deeply and use every day. Thanks, @stewart. 🙇🏼♀️.
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There is no better hype squad than the informal network of women in Silicon Valley. Someday our texts and DMs will reveal the long path to equality in all the things that matter. 💖.
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One year ago, my husband and I swung by our fertility clinic for a quick embryo implantation and then I dropped him off at Amazon an hour later for final interviews. It all worked out.
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I'm often reminded of the SATC episode where Carrie asserts you're always looking for a boyfriend, an apartment, or a job. Hadn't realized that when you stop looking for the partner or the job, you just look at real estate on your phone for the rest of your life.
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Week 2 of 3 of my second phase of maternity leave. Have seen a lot of dads take the multiple-waves approach and can’t recommend it enough: different slices of the first year create new memories and moments to digest the major life change that comes with mixing work and kids.
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Sometimes I reflect on the hyperproductivity of my teens (90s) and 20s (00s) and wonder what my secret was back then. Maybe just youth?. And then 45 minutes later I look up from Twitter, IG, signal, iMessage, and TikTok and think “ohhhhhh.”.
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Returning from maternity leave is like trying to merge into traffic going 35 MPH while traffic is going 70 MPH except there is roadwork so things have changed and also you’re steering with your knees because your hands are full. Also fun!.
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Reality of high-growth startup: things will feel broken, info won’t feel appropriately distributed, important things will seem overlooked.
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P.S. And in case you’re wondering, my work with @hashtagangels to get more women on the cap tables of successful startups will continue unabated. ❤️.
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I have helped build platforms 💃🏼 at 4 companies - Travelocity, Google, Twitter, & Slack - in roles including engineer, PM, & BD #WiTBragDay.
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We all knew that if MSFT was going to acquire OpenAI the only way they’d be able to avoid antitrust issues was if [insert this weekend’s exact series of events, no edits] 🤔.
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Since I’ve been working independently for a year, my tips about WFH:.1. Don’t do meetings from your bed. Comfortable but depressing. 2. Use this opportunity to patronize local biz. 3. Make your desk area delightful. 4. Call your work / industry friends just to catch up. ❤️.
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Vice President.
What role would Kamala Harris play in a Biden administration?
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The problem with ordering groceries on the internet: quantities can be overlooked. Accepting spinach recipes.
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Can’t help but wonder how this would be going if SVB had virtually any other name.
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News today! Say hello to a new brand for our newco -- @nearby! Learn more about what my team and I have been working on for the past 9 months. We're proud to have our roots in @KeepOakland and know this approach can work in other towns near and far.
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Huge fan of Twitter dot com but I would be ok if the next president wanted to make Twitter a smaller part of the job.
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What the hell are we supposed to do for the next 23 hours.
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Hello I am A.U. definitely not a woman please may we conduct business with one another.
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My email style, over a series of weeks. Radio silence .Radio silence.Radio silence.Radio silence.Radio silence .Radio silence.Radio silence.Radio silence.Radio silence .Radio silence.Radio silence.Radio silence.REIGN OF INBOX ZERO TERROR.Radio silence .Radio silence.Radio silence.
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Just realized I have been working in growth company mode, 50-300% headcount and revenue growth, for 8.5 years straight. 😳.
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Recommended literary pairing for your thanksgiving dinner table
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Levels of commitment:.1. Co-habitation.2. Marriage.3. Write access to one’s calendar.
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Had a great time sitting down with @karaswisher after all these years. Slack, product management, the future of work software, chicken fried steak: this pod passes the Bechdel test.
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Just met an amazing VP of Product who started her role in the pandemic. Who else do I know who've taken head of product roles and never met their teams in person? I'd love to connect you all together to make an incredible but at times lonely job a little less lonely. ❤️.
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When I attended Texas, never in a million years did I think I would be selected for an honor like this. I had an amazing time there, benefited from a variety of academic and needs-based scholarships, and was very happy to be among the 40K+ undergraduate student body.
It's an exciting day around here, y'all. Join us in congratulating our 2019 Outstanding Young Texas Ex Recipients: Rush Bartlett, @FitMenCook, @ReneeFor449th, and @aunder🤘Meet them here →.
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Before I had kids, I saw coworkers who hopped back online after putting their kids to bed and didn’t think much of it. Now I have a kid and I ask, “how could anyone possibly have the energy after all that?”.
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The great thing about building a team from home is that they have no idea that I'm only 5'6"!.
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Pouring one out for folks who are missing going to that one bar in their hometown town tonight every year forever.
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Real party killer when everyone gets the @Headspace notification to go to bed at the same time.
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The cultural tipping point where you have enough women in leadership roles that it just makes sense to offer sheet masks as an optional night time bonding activity choice at your leadership offsite
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I love learning about the woman who shares my name in Montreal through the email I receive for her. 8 years ago she was on a great team at Lululemon; this weekend she has some sort of session which could be moved to a better time. Hope it’s a massage. Maybe someday I’ll meet her!.
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Warning for the next 4 weeks: We are into the part of the relationship with Trump where we have already split up, he knows he has to move out, but for now we are living under the same roof and it’s just total insanity. Nothing is off limits.
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Oh, and — we won a basket and the honor of first baby born in 2018 at Marin General. We are THOSE people!.
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News! I’m joining the @zillow BOD! Thanks to Spencer, @rich_barton et al for having me. And (duh!), no change to my role at @slackhq! ❤️
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@jaystee99 With appendicitis (which I guess we all only get once!), I didn’t feel like the risk of delay was worth it. I also had multiple people I trust say they’d had good experiences with health care here. So far, I agree!.
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Any time you believe you, your team, or your company has a unique organizational or process problem is a good time to reach outside to people you trust (or even your own prior experiences) for some perspective, camaraderie, and advice. Very few problems are truly new.
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3 years today! Time flies, still feels new. ❤️
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Feeling like I’ve really hacked a long trip to NYC by ordering coats from @RenttheRunway which got delivered *same day*. This could totally transform travel.
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Have been hoping to come across this storied letter I wrote as a child as a valiant crusade on gender inequity, but the final sentence breaks my heart a little. Even at a young age, I knew to be delicate about raising these issues to make sure men didn’t feel “thretened” (sic)
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Tomorrow marks 1 month until my due date 🤰🏼. Surprises: .(1) Getting dressed, especially for Business Stuff, is a daily struggle.(2) Lots of colleagues are incredibly supportive of pregnancy in unexpected ways.(3) It’s possible to nap in @stewart’s office without being seen.
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Working on my post-pandemic travel destination checklist: .- Arizona.- Omaha .- Wisconsin. Would love to add Michigan and Pennsylvania (never been to either!) and Georgia to my list.
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20s: text with friends at 10:30AM.30: text with friends at 9AM .32: text with friends at 8AM.35: text with friends at 7AM.37: text with friends at 6:20AM.40: text with friends at 5:47AM. Where does this go?.
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Life goal: to be the Marie Kondo of my own Google Calendar.
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I’ve missed most of the news on Twitter for the past couple days but it seems a lot like the same doom and gloom from from 2017. For something different, here is my kid’s first press coverage 😂:
Marin General Hospital announces first baby of 2018
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Undoubtedly the best event I’ve ever attended at Moscone. Grateful beyond words.
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A big day in our partnership with @Atlassian!
We’re taking a big step in our partnership with @Atlassian to improve the experiences of hundreds of thousands of teams who use our products together. We’re also officially welcoming Hipchat and Stride users to Slack - glad you’re here!
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To truly complete the 90s look, you need to look older in high school than you do at 40. Like you've got to look back at the photos later and think, "my God I looked old then." I think these fresh-faced Gen Zs are sort of missing that part.
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This is an extremely reasonable stance. We actually don’t need to trade reproductive, religious, and social freedoms for VC returns. We can have both.
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One thing I’ve noticed over the years in figuring myself out: a *lot* of very successful people suffer from anxiety. I am no doctor, but it seems that a propensity to anticipate what could go wrong is quite an advantage in business. 💁🏼♀️ #negativeintopositives #MentalHealthDay2018.
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