July 21, 2006 Rich Redelfs promoted at Foundation; lessons from Atheros By Matt Marshall Rich Redelfs, a venture capitalist at Foundation Capital has been promoted to "general partner" at the respected Silicon Valley firm. Before joining Foundation, he was chief executive of Atheros Communications, a chip company that most agree changed the WiFi industry — driving down cost and boosting performance at the same time. We caught up with him a few days ago: SiliconBeat: Why did you join the dark side? Rich: I've always enjoyed teaching. There's an aspect of "I've done it, and I want to help others as well." The other good thing about the dark side is there are so many neat companies and technologies out there, I'm like a kid in the candy store. If you're at a company, you're so heads-down and focused on one thing, that frankly you don't get a chance to lift your head up and look at all the other exiting things going on out there. It wasn't until I was hanging out, and meeting with entrepreneurs that I realized how fun it was to work with many different companies SiliconBeat: What was your most important lesson learned at Atheros? Rich: It's all about the people. It's the team. You just don't compromise. You hire the best people you possibly can in the world. This is very important in my investment decisions. I look at the people first and foremost... When I meet with an entrepreneur, I give them the benefit of the doubt that they can figure out the technology. Later on, in due diligence, it gets down to "Now, can these guys do that?" URL »