KJ EricksonFounder

United States - San Francisco, California

My mission is to demonstrate that in today's business environment, high-performance and heart are synchronistic -- and soon will be inseparable.

For the past 2.5 years, I've been building Enduring Technologies -- a modern conglomerate of tech companies with soul. As a semi-private equity firm, we buy, revive, or build high-margin or high-growth companies in a way that is decent, heartful, and that our grandchildren can be proud of. I am here to prove that business can be both highly profitable and human, and that in the new era businesses won't have the luxury of exploitating their people, their customers, or the environment and staying on top. In order to make this shift we need new models of leadership and culture -- my passion is to actively explore what those can be.

As an entrepreneur, I've built companies from 0 to 200 employees and raised $5+ million dollars from world class investors including Greylock, Foundation Capital, Norwest, and Maveron. I've been one of only a handful of solo female nontechnical founders ever accepted to Y Combinator, and have helped found companies that went on to exit for $100M+. I feel blessed to have seen the best and the worst of the startup world, the venture world, and the nonprofit world. And to have ridden the rollercoaster of the ups, the downs, and the dark nights of the soul that only founderhood can bring. I consider entrepreneurship perhaps the world's best training grounds for learning how to manage your own psychology.

Achievements and awards include:
- Rolling Stone, “25 People Shaping the Future”
- CNN, “Person You Should Know” awarded by Anderson Cooper
- Skoll Scholarship for Social Entrepreneurship - full merit scholarship to Oxford
- Clinton Foundation Honoree presented by Bill Clinton and Queen Rania of Jordan
- Glamour Magazine, “Top 10 College Women”
- New Leaders Council, "Top 40 Leaders Under 40”
- Top Writer in Technology on Medium.com