- Mark Suster is managing partner of Upfront Ventures, a Los Angeles venture firm
- Suster's fastidiousness has created what many now consider one of the best tech conferences of the year.
Inside an airy Los Angeles restaurant, the actor and Goop founder Gwyneth Paltrow and the billionaire developer Rick Caruso have just finished speaking on a VIP lunchtime panel. A few feet away, Serena Williams and her husband, the investor and Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian, are about to be served dessert.
These luminaries were among the 1,000-plus attendees of last month's Upfront Summit, a glitzy, invite-only tech conference organized by Upfront Ventures and its managing partner, Mark Suster, in Los Angeles each year.
As the lunch winds down, a slightly annoyed Suster barges in to deliver a friendly but stern admonition: It's time to get back to the main auditorium right now for the afternoon session.
"This is why everyone thinks I'm an asshole," Suster chuckles as he darts away to put out more fires at the event. "It sucks to be onstage and have nobody in the audience."
As he races backstage, Suster is irritated that an elevator is stuck and no one seems to know how to get it moving. There is also the music that welcomes speakers (too soft), the configuration of the audience (too far from the stage), the illusionist hired to close out the first day (too low energy), and the cookies in the green room (too fruity).
"Who the fuck likes chocolate-chip cookies with cranberries and raisins in them?" Suster says with a laugh. "It fucking annoys me."
With maniacal attention to detail and relentless hustle, Suster, 54, has for the past decade built the Upfront Summit into one of the most exclusive gatherings in tech.
His original goal when he created the first summit in 2012 was to attract the attention of LPs, the pension fund and endowment managers who fund VC firms, so he sought to create an event glamorous enough to get them to fly across the country.
"My real objective in the early days was that no LPs ever came to LA, and I'm like, 'How are we going to build an ecosystem if LPs don't come here?'" Suster said.
While most tech conferences are held in drab hotel rooms, Suster's vision was more Hollywood than Silicon Valley. The Upfront Summit is set in a different, iconic Southern California location every year, including the Rose Bowl Stadium, the Dolby Theatre, Malibu Farm restaurant, and Paramount Studios.He spares no expense, with Hollywood production values, marching bands, 25-piece orchestras, fireworks shows, dance shows, hot-air balloons, and movie stars and famous athletes in attendance. This year's event, held at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, cost over $2 million to produce. Attendees were greeted by a lineup of fake paparazzi using real flashbulbs.
"I wanted an experience where you walk in and there's a red carpet and you feel like you're a celebrity," Suster said. "I want you in the mindset that you're not turning up to a corporate conference."'
When Suster first tried recreating a red carpet at the 2017 Upfront Summit at LA Live, he asked his junior staff to play the photographers but he said it made them "cringey," so he did it himself. At last year's conference, the event staff stepped in.Suster found them lackluster.
"I was kind of pissed," Suster said. "I said to them this year, 'I don't trust you to do that. I want paid actors.'"
Suster's fastidiousness has created what many now consider one of the best tech conferences of the year.
"Mark and the Upfront Summit helped put LA tech and investing on the map," said Jeffrey Katzenberg, the cofounder of DreamWorks and WndrCo. "The summit has consistently attracted the highest-quality investors from across the country and I personally had more productive fundraising meetings in two days there than I would have been able to do anywhere else in two weeks."
But Suster's abrasive, take-no-prisoners approach has also alienated some startup founders and investors who say they will never work with him again because they found him overly aggressive, condescending, and ego-driven.
Several years ago, a founder whose startup Suster invested in was in a conference room rehearsing their presentation for the Upfront Summit. Rather than criticizing the speech, Suster belittled the founder in front of their executive team, telling the founder that they were too egotistical.
"No one cares about you," snapped Suster. The founder recalled trying to hold back tears as they finished the speech.
Another founder recalled a similar experience, feeling personally attacked as they practiced their remarks.
I can remember he made me feel worthless.An Upfront founder
"Instead of saying he didn't like the presentation, he berated me," said the other founder. "It was very nasty. I can remember he made me feel worthless."
Suster denied he disparaged founders before the Upfront Summit and said they are likely acting on "personal vendettas" to exaggerate what happened.
"Might I have given somebody strong feedback in front of team members?" Suster said. "If you haven't prepared a good presentation or practiced or are saying offensive things, it's my responsibility to pull the presentation."
Read the whole story here: Upfront's Mark Suster became the star of LA's booming startup scene. Some founders and VCs say they will never work with him again.