Louis Corso

On growing up in the Bay Area

I live in Santa Clara, less than a mile from the house I grew up in.

Growing up, we would always pass the old Apple headquarters on the way to school, and at the time they were doing this marketing campaign showcasing great figures in history: Gandhi, Martin Luther King, people like that. The side of the building had these massive, 50 foot billboards with their visages. I’m not sure exactly what impression that made on me, but surely something.

Fast forward to today, and every day I drive my kids to school past the NVIDIA headquarters. The building is designed as a series of giant glass domes, meant to replicate the topography of the mountains of the South Bay. And I’m sure this will make an impression on them, too.

So much has changed about Silicon Valley in the decades since I came home from the hospital, but in many ways nothing has changed at all.

On the hidden mechanics of VC finance

There is an incredible amount of financial work that needs to go on behind the scenes at a venture firm to make things work. It may seem like all vibes in early stage, but the opposite is true for a fund like Amplify.

First, you’ve got your quarterly financial reporting to LPs. We need to figure out the fair value of hundreds of portfolio companies across half a dozen funds. Their valuations are constantly changing and the definition of “fair value” is anything but clear.

Then you’ve got the operational side of running a fund that’s constantly moving money around. We’re responsible for making the right size and frequency of capital calls, cash distributions, and wiring to portfolio companies. This job can be as high level as “do our books balance?” and as low level as calling a company’s bank to manually confirm wire instructions.

On coffee

I graduated from college with a liberal arts degree in 2008, which wasn’t the best time to be looking for a job. So until I found a job, I worked at a local coffee shop in the South Bay as a barista. Eventually my brother and I went as far as possible down the coffee rabbit hole, obsessing over beans, processing, and dialing in the perfect espresso.

At home I’ve got a La Marzocco, and I’m the guy who has a ceramic V60 and Fellow Stagg at Amplify’s Menlo office for a nice morning pourover. I love trying new roasters, a fact for which the Bay Area is perfectly suited right now.