Mike Maples Jr.

Mike Maples Jr. has been on the Forbes “Midas List” since 2010 and was also named one of “8 Rising Stars” by Fortune Magazine. Before becoming a full-time investor, Maples was involved as a founder and operating executive at back-to-back startup IPOs, including Tivoli Systems (IPO TIVS, acquired by IBM) and Motive (IPO MOTV, acquired by Alcatel-Lucent).

Some of Maple’s investments include Twitter, Twitch.tv, ngmoco, Weebly, Chegg, Bazaarvoice, Spiceworks, Okta and Demandforce. And he is known for coining the term “thunder lizards,” which is a metaphor derived from Godzilla that describes the tiny number of truly exceptional companies that are wildly disruptive capitalist mutations.

He holds an engineering degree from Stanford University and an MBA from Harvard Business School. His interests include calligraphy, cinematography and sporting clays.