Maëlle Gavet
Maëlle Gavet is CEO at pre-seed investors Techstars. Her previous roles include CEO of OZON.ru, Russia’s largest e-commerce site, and executive VP of operations of the Priceline Group. Most recently she was COO at real estate platform Compass. She is the author of Trampled by Unicorns: Big Tech’s Empathy Problem and How to Fix It.
“I really don’t like that people are so obsessed with unicorns. It makes you make a lot of bad decisions.”
— Maëlle Gavet
The tech industry and its investors have been captivated by the spell of the Unicorn for too long — and the ambitious goal of a billion-dollar valuation has done more harm than good. Instead, founders should aim to be resilient Dragons. That’s the view of Maëlle Gavet, who as CEO of early-stage investment business Techstars has unmatched insight into the hopes, dreams, and challenges of thousands of founders. Maëlle also shares her experience as a “Fixer and Scaler” and offers important lessons for all entrepreneurs, from pre-seed start-ups to corporate change agents.