Cyan Banister is an American success story. A homeless teenager who originally supported herself by making hemp necklaces, then silk-screen T-shirts, she went on to become a self-taught engineer and to later hold several management roles at the security startup IronPort. It was a life-changing experience for her. She made an early fortune when it sold to Cisco for $830 million in 2007. She also met her husband, Scott Banister, who cofounded the company, and the two together and separately began writing seed-stage checks, including to SpaceX, Uber, and a long list of companies that are now household names. When seed-stage valuations began soaring to levels that gave them both pause, they hit the brakes, and Banister, a self-described workaholic, headed over to AngelList as an “ev-angel-list” to help recruit people like herself to create syndicates — akin to mini pop-up funds — on its platform. Soon after, Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund reached out to her and invited her to become a partner. In a wide-ranging conversation at a San Francisco event on Wednesday, we talked with Banister about her path and her investing style, which still sees her make angel investments of $1.5 million or less in companies that are often ambitiously futuristic or boringly practical and very much needed. (She kidded that they balance out one another.) We also chatted about Founders Fund, which has changed considerably since its 2005 founding yet maintained its reputation as a top fund, and we discussed why she thinks many of its original partners no longer live in San Francisco. Among the things we learned: that Founders Fund doesn’t have Monday morning partner meetings, as do many firms. In fact, it doesn’t even have weekly meetings, with Banister instead describing a highly decentralized operation. “We don’t have Monday morning partner meetings. We have very few meetings, actually,” she said. “We have a brunch every two or three weeks that’s an hour, hour-and-a-half long. We submit the agenda over Slack; sometimes, we have nothing to talk about and it’s very short. You literally get a plate of food, talk about the one or two items, and you’re done.”
Founders Fund also has quarterly off-sites, typically at a partner’s house and these are “all day affairs,” she said, adding that the team “doesn’t talk about specific deals. We talk about the future, about what’s exciting to all of us, what our different strategies might be.”
As for how decisions get made, Banister explained that the voting structure is dependent on the size of the check. “So you’d meet with one or two or three or four partners, depending on your [investing] stage,” she told attendees. Because she’s looking at very early-stage startups, for example, she doesn’t have to meet with many people to make a decision. “We don’t have to do a lot of consensus-type investing,” she said. But as the “dollar amount gets larger,” she’d continued, “you’re looking at full GP oversight,” including the involvement of senior members like Brian Singerman and Keith Rabois, and “that can a little more difficult.”
Asked how involved Thiel himself is in these decisions, Banister said that there’s a certain threshold above which he is always involved. Pressed on what that number is, Banister smiled, adding, “Let’s just say it’s a lot.”
Pointing to the other senior members of the team, she offered that the partnership doesn’t “need Peter’s advice all the time, but there’s a certain point where he has to get involved and meet the founders. Ideally, it’s a company that we brought in at its early stages and has grown with us and he has already developed a relationship with [its founders]. We also do an off-site once a year, which is a great opportunity for him” to see everyone involved in the firm’s portfolio. “But he’s pretty involved,” she said. “He comes to these brunches and [quarterly] off-sites. We see him more now [since he called it quits in San Francisco and moved to L.A.] than we did when he lived next door because he’s stuck. If he comes to San Francisco, where’s he going to go? He has to stay in his office,” she said. Banister declined to confirm or comment on a recent WSJ report that Founders Fund is in the process of closing on $3 billion in capital commitments across two funds — a flagship fund and an opportunity type of fund to support its companies as they remain private ever longer. But before we let her go, we asked Banister about turnover at the firm. Specifically, we noted, while Founders Fund was formed by Thiel, along with cofounders Ken Howery, Luke Nosek and Sean Parker, Howery is now the ambassador to Sweden, Nosek runs a separate fund in Austin called Gigafund, and Parker is off doing a variety of other things, many of them also in L.A . She explained that everyone is encouraged to do what they want. “Ken was encouraged to pursue his political aspirations; that’s something he has always wanted to do,” she said for example. But she also acknowledged, when asked, that San Francisco itself might be a common thread. “It’s too expensive here. That’s the problem. We need to build more housing. We can’t afford people to even serve us in this town, they come in from other cities, they can’t even live here. And that’s a huge problem when you’re investing and your thesis is to invest only in Silicon Valley and the surrounding area.” It’s hard for founders who’ve been dogmatic about keeping their teams together and are now more likely to plant some core members in the Bay Area and hire globally, she said. It’s also a challenge for Founders Fund, she suggested, saying that “we’re already starting to look elsewhere [for startups], including in the Midwest.”
As for whether San Francisco is doing enough for founders — or founders enough for San Francisco — Banister suggested both are coming up far short, saying of the city that “it should be the most technologically advanced” in the world. “There’s no reason we shouldn’t be like Tokyo . . . when we gave birth to Airbnb and Uber, and yet our city looks the way it does and operates the way it does and it’s a disaster.”
Tech founders and employees are in a particularly “weird situation” where on the one side a “a large part of this city hates technology and hates all of us,” and on the other are people like Salesforce founder Marc Benioff who are funneling money into the city but whose efforts don’t appear to her to be making a difference. “I’ve yet to see a dent” in homelessness, she said, as an example. More, she said, “Crime is going up and we now have a district attorney who won’t prosecute crimes that have to do with any sort of quality-of-life [issue]. [San Francisco is] going to start something instead where if your [car] window is broken, they’ll replace it with some kind of window Uber app at a discounted rate.”
The crowd laughed. Some attendees thought she was joking about the window replacement service. ( She wasn’t . )  “This is a really bad direction [we’re headed in],” she said. “We need diversity of thinking here, and we don’t have it on the political level, and we all need to get more involved.”

VC Cyan Banister on her path, who decides what at Founders Fund, and the state of San Francisco

Blank Rome represented Return Path in the defense of a patent infringement suit brought in the Western District of Texas. Return Path, Inc. provides data solutions to various companies worldwide. It offers Email Optimization Suite for email marketing programs; Email Fraud Protection that uses threat intelligence to detect, block, and respond to email threats targeting the customers in real-time; and Consumer Insight that provides visibility into the preferences and detailed purchase behaviors of various consumers. The six-year case included two appeals to the federal circuit, resulting in the plaintiff paying over $300,000 in costs to Return Path and co-defendant Cisco.

CBT Flint Partners, LLC. v. Return Path, Inc. and Cisco Ironport Systems, LLC

Free White Paper on Monitoring IronPort Health, Performance, Usage, as Well as Network Availability
BOSTON, MA--(Marketwired - May 12, 2016) - GSX Solutions [ www.gsx.com ], the global leader in proactive, consolidated monitoring and reporting of Unified Communication environments, including Microsoft, IBM, BlackBerry, Cisco ESA , SQL Server applications, today announced a new white paper to discuss why Cisco IronPort monitoring is critical for your business and how GSX Solutions can help track IronPort health, performance and usage. One of the primary functions of Cisco's IronPort appliance is mail security, including encryption, anti-spam, and antivirus. IronPort acts as a critical part of the messaging environment, making visibility into the status of its health and usage a must for busines SES . This GSX Solutions white paper will explore why IronPort monitoring is critical for businesses, the common ISS ues administrators face, and how GSX Solutions supports organizations using it by:
Monitoring IronPort health, performance, usage, as well as network availability and latency, while simultaneously testing and troubleshooting the messaging environment. Proactive end-to-end IronPort monitoring to avoid any issue before it affects your business lines. License Management to prevent any unexpected critical service failure. Easier troubleshooting, reducing the mean time to repair (MTTR). Agentless architecture for fast and non-intrusive deployment. To access the white paper 'Why IronPort Monitoring is Critical for Your Business' please click here: http://www.gsx.com/white-paper-ironport-monitoring
About GSX Solutions
GSX Solutions is the global leader in non-intrusive, agentless analysis and management of consolidated enterprise collaboration, messaging environments including infrastructure, cloud, networks, database, mobility, operating systems -- all from a single platform. Whether for on-premises, cloud, or hybrid environments, GSX's solutions are designed to not only assess the performance of applications themselves, but to monitor all components that might impact the quality of performance. GSX's goal is to enhance the end-user experience through agentless robot users to proactively collect all applications data; a modern platform to visualize and analyze the information with INSIGHT ful reports and fore CAS ts while helping IT administrators to meet ROI goals. GSX is a Microsoft Systems Center Alliance Partner, and a Microsoft Silver Partner on Messaging competency. For more product information and partner opportunities, please visit www.gsx.com . All product and company names herein may be trademarks of their registered owners. Source: Marketwired - All


GSX Solutions White Paper: Why IronPort Monitoring Is Critical for Your Business

Free White Paper on Monitoring IronPort Health, Performance, Usage, as Well as Network Availability
BOSTON, MA--(Marketwired - May 12, 2016) - GSX Solutions [ www.gsx.com ], the global leader in proactive, consolidated monitoring and reporting of Unified Communication environments, including Microsoft, IBM, BlackBerry, Cisco ESA, SQL Server applications, today announced a new white paper to discuss why Cisco IronPort monitoring is critical for your business and how GSX Solutions can help track IronPort health, performance and usage. One of the primary functions of Cisco's IronPort appliance is mail security, including encryption, anti-spam, and antivirus. IronPort acts as a critical part of the messaging environment, making visibility into the status of its health and usage a must for businesses. This GSX Solutions white paper will explore why IronPort monitoring is critical for businesses, the common issues administrators face, and how GSX Solutions supports organizations using it by:
Monitoring IronPort health, performance, usage, as well as network availability and latency, while simultaneously testing and troubleshooting the messaging environment. Proactive end-to-end IronPort monitoring to avoid any issue before it affects your business lines. License Management to prevent any unexpected critical service failure. Easier troubleshooting, reducing the mean time to repair (MTTR). Agentless architecture for fast and non-intrusive deployment. To access the white paper 'Why IronPort Monitoring is Critical for Your Business' please click here: http://www.gsx.com/white-paper-ironport-monitoring
About GSX Solutions
GSX Solutions is the global leader in non-intrusive, agentless analysis and management of consolidated enterprise collaboration, messaging environments including infrastructure, cloud, networks, database, mobility, operating systems -- all from a single platform. Whether for on-premises, cloud, or hybrid environments, GSX's solutions are designed to not only assess the performance of applications themselves, but to monitor all components that might impact the quality of performance. GSX's goal is to enhance the end-user experience through agentless robot users to proactively collect all applications data; a modern platform to visualize and analyze the information with insightful reports and forecasts while helping IT administrators to meet ROI goals. GSX is a Microsoft Systems Center Alliance Partner, and a Microsoft Silver Partner on Messaging competency. For more product information and partner opportunities, please visit www.gsx.com . All product and company names herein may be trademarks of their registered owners. Contact Information


Get the Most Out of Cisco IronPort With GSX Monitor
BOSTON, MA--(Marketwired - Apr 5, 2016) - GSX Solutions [ www.gsx.com ], the global leader in proactive, consolidated monitoring and reporting of Unified Communication environments, including Microsoft, IBM, BlackBerry, Cisco ESA, SQL Server applications, today announced a new webinar to discuss why Cisco IronPort monitoring is critical, and how GSX Solutions can help track IronPort health, performance, and usage. Email Security Solutions have a global impact on email performance and service delivered to end users. This makes it a critical part of the messaging environment because when IronPort fails, your entire mail flow is shut down. During this webinar, GSX will explore why IronPort monitoring is critical and what information is needed to track it. What: GSX Solutions will present the main challenges faced by Cisco IronPort, and how GSX Monitor supports organizations using it by:
Monitoring IronPort health, performance, usage, as well as network availability and latency, while simultaneously testing and troubleshooting the messaging environment. Proactive end-to-end IronPort monitoring to avoid any issue before it affects your business lines. License Management to prevent any unexpected critical service failure. Easier troubleshooting, reducing the mean time to repair (MTTR). Agentless architecture for fast and non-intrusive deployment. When: Tuesday, April 12, 2016, 11 a.m. to 11:45 a.m. North American Eastern time zone, 5:00 p.m. to 5:45 p.m. Central Europe time zone. Where: Please sign up here: http://www.gsx.com/webinar-ironport
About GSX Solutions
GSX Solutions is the global leader in non-intrusive, agentless analysis and management of consolidated enterprise collaboration, messaging environments including infrastructure, cloud, networks, database, mobility, operating systems -- all from a single platform. Whether for on-premises, cloud, or hybrid environments, GSX's solutions are designed to not only assess the performance of applications themselves, but to monitor all components that might impact the quality of performance. GSX's goal is to enhance the end-user experience through agentless robot users to proactively collect all applications data; a modern platform to visualize and analyze the information with insightful reports and forecasts while helping IT administrators to meet ROI goals. GSX is a Microsoft Systems Center Alliance Partner, and a Microsoft Silver Partner on Messaging competency. For more product information and partner opportunities, please visit www.gsx.com . All product and company names herein may be trademarks of their registered owners. Contact Information


GSX Solutions Webinar: Tracking IronPort Health, Performance and Usage

Webroot is a global provider of anti-spyware and other security software to customers ranging from consumers to Fortune 500 enterprises.

Webroot

Webroot Inc. 's Vice President of Worldwide Marketing , Vinay Goel , commented , `` The layered solution provided by the partnership between IronPort and Webroot Inc. combines the speed of the IronPort appliance with the effectiveness of the RockSafe anti -- spyware technology giving the customer one of the most powerful perimeter solutions available today . ''

San Bruno, CA & Boulder, CO – October 24, 2006.
Ironport Systems and Webroot Software Partner to Stop Spyware and Web Based Threats.
IronPort is using the Webroot RockSafe E1000 SDK in IronPort’s new S–Series Web Security Appliances.
IronPort S–Series, Worlds Fastest Web Security Appliance Includes Unique Combination of Signatures and Traffic Analysis.

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IronPort Systems is an email and Web security products provider for organizations ranging from small businesses to the Global 2000. IronPort provides high performance, easy-to-use, and technically innovative products for those faced with the monumental task of managing and protecting their mission-critical networks from Internet threats.

Name	Work History	Title	Status
Scott Banister	Cisco, Idealab, and LinkExchange	Founder	Current
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