Startup Mindsets

Earl Valencia is a venture-backed startup founder, investor, and corporate innovation executive who has worked in the Silicon Valley, New York, and Southeast Asia. In 2023, he was appointed by the President of the Philippines as an Executive Member of the National Innovation Council representing the business sector. He spent his time in Wall Street in the data team of Bridgewater Associates, the world's largest hedge fund, and then was a Managing Director of Digital at Charles Schwab. He also spent several years in enterprise tech working with the Emerging Technology and Innovation teams at Cisco, VMWare, and Dell EMC. He was the VP of Corporate Development and Innovation at Smart-PLDT at twenty-nine, and became one of the youngest executives in the entire Philippines during his time. He also co-founded IdeaSpace, a leading incubator and accelerator based in Manila, and QBO, a public- private innovation centre in the Philippines, both with a combined 100+ incubated companies. For his contributions to emerging market innovation, he was honoured by the World Economic Forum as a Young Global Leader and awarded by the President of the Philippines as one of the Ten Outstanding Young Men and Women of the country. He was also featured on the Nasdaq Times Square Billboard for being selected in the Nasdaq Center's Milestone Makers programme. Earl started at the University of the Philippines and completed his degree in Electrical Engineering, summa cum laude, from Boston University. He also has a master's in Systems Engineering from Cornell University, and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He is currently an adjunct faculty for global leadership at the Jack Welch College of Business and Technology at Sacred Heart University in Connecticut and the Asian Institute of Management. Dan Gonzales is a writer by nature with venture capital and startup experience. Fascinated by how entrepreneurs think and what gets them to perform, Dan developed close ties with the Silicon Valley founders and venture capitalists at VU Venture Partners. He holds a BA in English from University of California, Riverside. Dan hosts the Startup Mindsets podcast, a platform that dives deep into how entrepreneurs make decisions and can run successful businesses. He has invested in several early-stage startups including Akash Systems, Contraline, Fan Controlled Sports & Entertainment.