Jacob Mullins
Jacob Mullins is a Venture Partner at Village Global.
Jacob is a 20-year Silicon Valley veteran entrepreneur/founder and venture capital investor. Based in San Francisco, Jacob is also a Managing Director at Shasta Ventures where he has been making investments in the artificial intelligence, computer vision, software-as-a-service, gaming and web3/crypto industries since 2016. Prior to that he has been a multi-time founder of technology companies that span industries from e-commerce to media to fintech. He also spent two years at Microsoft leading the US growth of Microsoft BizSpark, the startup program which was a precursor to Microsoft Ventures, M12.
Jacob sits on the boards of Threekit, GoFormz, and DeepSentinel and was the creator of the Shasta Camera Fund, a seed-stage investment initiative focused in computer vision AI and 3D-native software companies.
Jacob is the founder and host of VC Mastermind, the private podcast and member network for global VC Managing Partners. Jacob has raised capital globally and partnered with institutional investors, family offices and sovereign wealth funds on developing their venture capital strategies across the US, Europe, Middle East and Asia.
Jacob is a co-founder of SomosVC, a career development network for current and aspiring professionals with Latina/o backgrounds in venture capital. Jacob is a Gates Millennium Scholar, Kauffman Fellow, and holds a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Yale University.
Q&A with Jacob
What’s the common thread that runs through your career?
Community building. In every place and role I’ve ever been, I’ve been a part of building a strong community. In college it was founding a fraternity, in my startups it was bringing customers together to learn from each other, and in venture it’s been enabling founders to achieve their goals through broad community support. I believe we are better together.
What’s one of your superpowers?
Constant curiosity and context switching matched with the ability to build relationships quickly.
A book you commonly gift to people?
Golf is Not a Game of Perfect by Dr. Bob Rotella. Yes I’m a golfer but the mental psychology taught in this book is applicable far beyond swinging a club – I use it every day in business and in life. This practice urges high levels of training, preparation, thinking-in-advance and visualization of success BEFORE you are “in the game”, so that when you are in execution mode you are able to move actively, swiftly and decisively to your end goal. i.e. “Don’t think, just flow,” Because of the prepared mind and the trust of self, this often leads to success. However when it does not and you end up in a failure situation, you are equipped with the mental fortitude to know that failure is a part of the process, and the confidence to execute again with an equal expectation of success.
In your spare time?
I love to get into the outdoors hiking, fishing, and camping. Northern California is such a bounty of beautiful nature, and being surrounded by water, big trees and the natural environment is restorative for me. I also love sharing good food and wine with friends.
