Work at a tech company? Ever wonder if your parents know what you do. We did.
So we asked.
Do you work in tech? Ever wonder what your parents think you actually do and what your company does. We were.
And so we asked our parents the following 2 questions:
- What does CB Insights do?
- And what is my job?
What follows are their amazing, funny, accurate and often love-filled responses. It’s mostly parents but a couple of other family members also snuck in and we added them.
First, a big thanks to all the parents who shared their thoughts/responses. We’re so happy to have assembled such an amazing team. We had a killer 2016 and are expecting even bigger things in 2017.
Second, if you want to work at a company where your parents will kinda know what you do, you should join us. We’re growing like a weed, are a real company (not reliant on VC money to survive) and our customers and the media love us.
Check out all our open positions (there are 20+ right now)
Let’s begin.
The winner for the most impressive response goes to Jake’s parents who touch upon Jake’s work, our great team-building activities, Hack Day and more. If you are thinking of joining CBI, there is a lot of gold in their response.
Note: We don’t encourage facial hair growth except for in Movember.
Top 10 things we think we know about Jake’s job and CB Insights:
1) Jake grows impressive facial hair, then shaves it, then grows it back again. He seems to be encouraged to do this.
2) Jake listens to his favorite music a lot while “coding.”
3) Jake’s Mom does not know what “coding” means. Jake’s Dad thinks coding means writing series of commands that tell computer processors what to do on both the front end for users and on the back-end to process lots of information, which makes him a full-stack engineer. (We remember the “full-stack” part by thinking of pancakes.)
4) However, after seeing the movie “The Imitation Game,” we think the fact that Jake deals with “code” could make him a spy. (But it’s an “enigma” to us!)
5) Jake spends time at work resting and recovering in between fun company-sponsored events, such as bubble soccer, kayaking on the Hudson, fantasy football, and lots of pretty-serious-sounding happy hours.
6) We think that CB Insights provides research and analysis of private firms for potential investors, potential customers, potential competition, and other potentially interested parties.
7) It seems to have a subscription-based business that allows access to various levels of information based on various levels of payment. CB Insights also seems to be in the news a lot as a “go-to” expert on things relating to business trends and newer, developing companies.
8) Even though we are not paying for such research, we signed up for some free samples and got some newsletters that make it sound like the people at the company are “insightful,” and that the research and analysis would be interesting if we were in a position to make use of it.
9) We think Jake works on a team of people that helps CB Insights manage and maintain the system that provides the information to the different subscribers, as well as helping support the work of other employees who do product development, marketing, and perform other functions.
10) Periodically, it seems, CB Insights conducts strange experiments involving intensely focused extended “work sprints” and sleep deprivation. Jake seems to take these as personal challenges and enjoys them, for some reason.
Mahd’s fiance has clearly heard about our awesome team-building activities. It’s good to hear the word is getting out.
You implement new features on the product side. But mostly you just party, attend happy hours, have birthday cakes and other fun social events. I wish my HR was like yours.
Some parents just get what we do
Will’s dad basically wrote a killer pitch for CBI when describing what we do. Extra credit to him for calling us AI.
Provides strategic information gathered from big data through special artificial intelligence software concerning industry trends such as what is relevant, who is buying (including valuation), best place to locate, and what is hot to players in those industries or companies that want to enter those industries. Additionally, the same type of information is provided to various media for dissemination.
John Frelinger’s dad def gets us highlighting our business model, customers and media attention.
The database is updated frequently and thus is a type of subscription-based model. This platform allows one to see who has invested, amounts of money raised, what round of funding etc. This is of value to a variety of companies or organizations, such as firms with mergers and acquisitions departments, venture capitalists, as well as companies who want to determine emerging trends in various industries or spaces.
CB insights also produces newsletters (often quoted in financial magazines) about companies and emerging trends in specific industries
Jon Sherry’s dad clearly knows our business and also works in a nice pitch for our Future of FinTech Conference coming up in June at Lincoln Center.
My understanding is that CB Insights provides a service to clients in which you provide access to databases and analysis of
– venture capital activities and players
– angel investors,
– startups and emerging players
– major innovations and patents in software based companies.I believe you have a strong focus on the Fintech industry given the conference you sponsored.
Your objective is to provide your clients background information to assist them in making decisions on markets to enter and where acquisitions make sense. You collect data from various sources – some generally available some not and you collect and reduce this data to the type of information they need to make decisions. Customers could get much of this data if they wanted to invest the time and effort; however, your value proposition is that you provide it more cost effectively, more timely and more complete than they can do it themselves.
Amanda’s dad nails her job in HR at CB Insights. Well done Dad.
You are part of a team that locates talent, recruits, and hires skilled employees into CB Insights. In addition, you are engaged in creating a worker-friendly environment that mentors and supports all employees.
Cameron’s mom has realized we have plans for world domination.
You demonstrate to sell to venture capitalists and others who are looking to invest (or possibly buy?) companies. You work strange hours because you must meet the needs of those in different time zones.
Ryan’s dad has clearly been reading about how we gather our data via The Cruncher.
CBI provides data about private companies to investors/competitors that is acquired thru numerous sources on the internet and government filings.
Nephi’s dad highlights the work we are doing with predictive algorithms (“early tips”). Nice.
Your company provides your customers a unique database that provide early tips that they can possibly invest in early stage of new opportunity in products and/or stocks.
You provide your customers, constant information by email news and other.
Amanda’s mom gets extra credit for knowing about Mosaic, our algorithm to evaluate private companies. Well done.
I think the company gathers data and uses an algorithm they have developed to evaluate companies for your clients.
Logan’s dad offers a description which we’ll borrow from when we write job reqs in the future.
Logan’s job is to sell subscriptions to CB Insights analytics. I have assumed he spends his day researching prospective clients and attempts to start a dialogue with them via email or phone. His job is to engage the potential customer and close a sale.
Jon Sherry’s mom does a nice job explaining what a COO does.
see the big picture ~ coordination
make decisions re: direction of company
oversee projects ~ which to pursue and progress
personnel issues
Nikhil’s mom does a nice job explaining what CBI does. And even if it’s wrong, it’s Nikhil’s fault.
CB Insights does data gathering ,analysis ,comparisons in market research of products,tech,companies,jobs etc. Hope I am close otherwise you did not do a good job of explaining.
Kristin’s dad nails the types of insights we provide:
CB insights provides insights (of course) of the what where, and why, venture capital money is going. This information helps other companies, VC firms, and other CB clients make investment decisions, product decisions, and company direction plans.
Some were funny
About what Sam does, his mom wrote the following awesome description:
Sam calls potential clients and with his upbeat Midwest attitude begs them to participate in a demo of CB insights software. It’s hard to say no to Sam. Beg is the operative word here. When he was little, he’d ask things of us over and over again until his Father would reprimand him with “if you ask one more time, you will be grounded”. Sam is relentless.
Roy’s mom nicely summarized what people at CB Insights are like:
CB – you are all dreamers. Nothing wrong with that. Heh heh. Go CB.
Mahd’s sister offers up a response that is clearly the response of a sister. Note: We don’t use Java 🙂
You sit on a computer all day in your nerdy casual clothes and write code in weird languages like Java and Python.
Logan’s mom drops the M word and a reference to Aunt Sara so you know this one is going to be good. And it lives upto expectations.
To quote Aunt Sara, “Our kids are millennials, we’re not supposed to understand what they do.” And will I be graded on a curve, please? I am giving my answers based on your father’s description to me of your job. Believe it or not you never told me, that I remember. And I have looked at web site, moons ago.
Very simply put, you are in sales. Which I assume means phone time, understanding/deciphering what is needed and finding the answer(s) to those needs.
There were lots of proud parents
Kristin’s mom wrote:
Kristin is a graphic designer. She works on developing a consistent visual brand for the company through digital and print media. And yes I am very proud of her!
Reilly’s mom nails it
CB Insights is a smart company that hired our talented daughter to make themselves more profitable doing marketing.
Josh’s mom nails his job responsibilities and his awesomeness. Love this.
My energetic, loving life son is a dynamic Sales Development Representative who contacts and engages CEO’s of large corporations and effectively persuades them to try CB Insights demo software that is data driven and effective in leading investors and corporations to make smarter strategic decisions.
PS- I had to provide adjectives to describe my wonderful creative son! I couldn’t help myself!
My mom is the first person ever to describe our newsletter as beautiful. (BTW, you should subscribe. Your boss and 223,000+ others already do. Get it for free here)
He is very hardworking. He travels, gives speeches and gets new clients. He does lots of calls to different companies to important people to get new business. He writes a beautiful newsletter. He is the best.
Extra credit
Christian’s dad uses a killer metaphor and references unicorns. Boom!
I tell people that it is the Bloomberg of the Private Sector suppling companies about the financials of companies in the private sector, what they are doing or planning on doing, and watching out for unicorns
Rob’s mom gets extra credit for use of this killer adverb.
A venture capital database that magically updates daily.
Dan’s dad also with the nice nod to Bloomberg.
The company is similar to a Bloomberg terminal only Bloomberg deals with publicly traded companies and CB Insights focuses on private venture capital.
Katie’s mom compared us to Facebook (market cap: $333B) so we’re good with that.
I think they collect data from multiple sources and put together trends and sell that data to business that might benefit from this information This is how FB puts on ads of items I viewed on Amazon lol
Are we the next Sequoia Capital? Maybe.
We did have a short-lived VC fund, ChubbyBrain Ventures, but seems like we should get back into the game.
Clint’s mom thinks we’re a VC which is pretty cool
Give capital for those people or companies that may need a little extra help, with CB insight getting interest too.
Justine’s dad
You’re a product manager for a venture capitalist company.
They weren’t sure, but yup, they nailed it.
Some folks voiced some uncertainty about what we do but still got it.
Case in point is this one by Jason’s mom
CB Insights sells technology to track data on companies???
JJ’s dad wasn’t sure and does well. We particularly like the ideas of some sort of magical CB Insights fairy dust.
I believe JJ supports / provides information to the folks who are investing their money.
How did I do?
If not that then JJ sprinkles CB Insight dust on her customers E-Mails so that she can get them to invest.
Lane’s dad offers up a solid answer and now is owed a nice description from Lane on what we do. Hopefully the rest of this post helps too.
You market the data acquired by your employees to parties that are interested in receiving very difficult information to get on equity start up companies in the market place. It is my understanding that your marketing is mostly by Internet. I’m only answering these questions because I really want to know what you do
Harrison’s brother clearly does have an idea.
Your company develops the product (software maybe) that analyzes the data. I really have no idea.
Dan’s mom also gets us:
I think you sell different custom packages of information offerings to large corporations for their knowledge and potential investment decisions. I think you can customize these packaged to the corporations / institutions for their best use and decision making.
Let me know how right/wrong I am!
Ryan’s mom – this is pretty solid.
Cb insights provides customers about information regarding private companies
All business information I have no clue about . Haha
Or this one by Tyson’s mom:
Sells a data package to companies to get deep dive analysis of other companies for possible acquisition merger???
Toby’s mom weighs in and gives me a good opportunity to highlight our pricing. Thanks!
I think your job is to help company’s find other companies to invest in. You make cold calls to customers to try to get them to join the company and pay a monthly fee.
More Parental Insights into CBI
Mahd’s mother talks about us as an advisor. Does she know about us building an algorithmic management consultant. Shhhhh.
Your company acts as an advisor to companies who want to invest and buy shares in other companies.
Sam’s dad highlights our data on private companies and a growing area of the business.
CB Insights has tools which help evaluate not yet public companies. This information helps hedge funds evaluate investment possibilities.
Mahd’s dad details his work in engineering
You are a software engineer – sit behind a computer and write code in a language.
Mahd clarification afterwards: 5 languages actually but fair enough
Brian’s mom nicely describes customer success:
I think you manage people and accounts and look to cross sell.
Prakash’s dad clearly knows something about tech.
Prakash, you are an senior IT developer/architect, dealing with data, sorting, searches, pattern matching and front end development to be used by your clients. You create data services to be used by Front end. The data you work with is related to product and financial information about the companies where your clients may have investments or may want to invest.
Charley’s mom
Provides analytical tools and services for financial and business investment teams, focusing on new, emerging organizations and venture capital opportunities.
Thanks again for reading, and if you’re a parent who provided input, thanks for taking the time.
Remember: We’re hiring a ton still. Check out our open positions.