2024 Venture Capital Technology Intern

Anthos is a generalist venture capital firm with over $3B of assets under management.  Venture capital is what fuels new and innovative businesses, and – since our founding in 2007 – we’ve had the privilege of investing in and working with the founders of Guayaki, Gopuff, Olaplex, Trunk Club, ApplyBoard, VRChat, and dozens of other category-leading start-ups to build their businesses.  We purposely maintain a low profile, in keeping with our general ethos of humility and heads-down work ethic.  The background of our diverse team possesses a good balance across finance – Goldman Sachs, Luxor, Ares, Summit – and consumer tech – Google, Facebook, Instagram, Snap, Apple, Venmo, and more.

Anthos Technology's 2024 Internship offers an MBA student a hands-on opportunity to contribute to our cutting-edge project aimed at enhancing our software tool management and compliance processes. This initiative is pivotal as we navigate anticipated regulatory changes and strive for operational excellence.

This role is ideal for candidates interested in the internal operations and enablement of a private investment firm.

ABOUT THE INTERNSHIP:

For current MBA students

Flexible start and end dates, depending on the needs of the project and your availability

$1500 sign-on bonus, and $2250 per week

Office location in Santa Monica, CA or Dana Point, with remote options available for highly qualified applicants

Open to those who are legally able to work in the U.S.

SUMMARY:

The key outcome of this project is a flexible framework for managing the procurement and management of software tools at Anthos, directly influencing the firm’s operations and compliance posture.

While we have a relatively small firm, the diverse nature of our work requires an ever-growing number of desktop and cloud software vendors (80+) which vary widely from one team to the next. Our goal is to create a consistent process for purchasing tools, documenting information about the vendor, actively managing seat allocations, and (if time allows) integrating with our on/offboarding process using as much automation as possible.

A framework like this has long been an “important but not urgent” aspiration, but the SEC is widely anticipated to force the issue later this year. While the details of Rule 206(4)-9 are yet to be finalized, the net outcome will force RIAs to maintain rigorous annual documentation about all vendors which touch any of the firm’s data. In addition, it is expected to shift to the firm some degree of liability over vendor security practices, forcing RIA’s to conduct rigorous vendor diligence. Our lack of a formal “vendor risk management framework” was highlighted as a High Priority finding in our most recent cybersecurity audit, conducted by ACA in Q3 2023.

Rather than perform this exercise ad hoc each year, our aim is to create a standard process by which we manage vendors and tools which should allow us to consistently provide on-demand answers to the list of Project Goal questions below. This will maintain more efficient and accurate ongoing compliance with Rule 206(4)-9 than annually repeating the project.

PROJECT SCOPE:

This project requires the intern to navigate the entirety of Anthos’ organization to understand the job functions within each department and the tools used in the performance of each role. Aggregating this context and data will inform the intern’s recommendation on how to design an oversight system fulfilling compliance+operation requirements while introducing minimal friction to the end-user or broader organization. In fact, the net outcome of this project should be increased efficiency across the organization as the selection and management of tools becomes more consistent.

The recommended system should anticipate:

Back-office optimization for how we manage our toolkit through the budget and expense process

Operational workflows for approvals, reviews, etc., and any technical solutions needed to realize them

This may include defining (or building) automation tools like Slack bots or low-code Tray.io workflows to support a streamlined process

Investigating the resources available or new resources necessary to support appropriate diligence of new vendors

Creating any report or export tools/workflows needed to fulfill the project goals

The intern will devise a recommended framework which will then be reviewed and iterated on in collaboration with Anthos Technology, Operations, HR and leadership teams. Once a v1 framework has been devised, the intern will take the initiative to enact changes in technical and operational processes to realize the changes needed.

The plan also needs to be appropriately socialized and engrained within the team in a way that makes end users feel empowered and efficient. Process changes should be rooted in foundational principles mapped to clear objectives rather than arbitrary bureaucracy.

The scope of this effort may be extended through the fall to include leading changes to our Google Workspace workflows/configurations and leading automation scripting efforts using a tool like BetterCloud.

WHO YOU ARE:

Relentlessness, unwavering work ethic, and coachability.  This includes self-motivation, drive, and the ability to make progress under tight timelines and pressure.  The type of person who is successful at Anthos is open to constructive feedback because their broader goal is to continuously improve, not be “right”.

Diligence, and keen eye for detail. The type of person who is successful at Anthos is someone who produces exceptional work. In your end-products, details are not missed.

Independent thinking and extreme curiosity.  Don’t follow the crowd, use your own intuition and facts to determine what will succeed. Use those facts to identify how we can leverage our network and resources to have a meaningful impact on our work.

Immense capacity for learning and ingesting facts and data.  Investing means drinking from the firehose always, even as a seasoned professional. Proactively identifying where we can support our portfolio companies to enable their success will be crucial.

Deeply-ingrained work ethic. The type of person who is successful at Anthos is someone who doesn’t need to be asked to help out. They’ve already done it.

An ability to connect the dots about businesses and what’s happening in the world around you.  This is what we mean by business acumen. It’s not something you learn in Econ class; it’s using logic, asking questions, and figuring out what’s going on before others do.

Collaborative attitude and low ego. Our unique functional model requires team members to support each other to be successful. We’re all in this together.

Technical Literacy and Cybersecurity Acumen: While we won’t ask you to write a bespoke sorting algorithm, you should be comfortable discussing technical topics and writing basic code (in your preferred language). Similarly, we won’t have you conduct a firewall pen test but you should have some vocabulary in cybersecurity concepts. We have expert advisors/vendors in this area but you should feel confident discuss with them how various operational and technical decisions might influence our security posture.

Anthos Capital is committed to cultivating a fair, inclusive and equal work environment, and we’re proud of being the rare VC that has 50/50 gender representation across all levels.  We strive to be a place where each team member is empowered to come to work as their true self.