In Ten Years' Time: One Vision of My Future

In my current role, I spend a lot of time asking Teach For America corps members and alumni the following questions:

• Where do you see yourself in ten years?
• Where do you see yourself next year?
• What can you do in the next month to move yourself forward?

They’ve proven to be incredibly useful questions, outlining conversations that are equal parts aspirational and practical. Drawing out such a lengthy time frame is especially helpful, as it provides a lot of room within which we can get really creative about a person’s arc.

After asking these questions dozens of times, I began to wonder what my own answer to the Ten Year Question might be. So at a recent grad school immersion, I took a “new leader speech” assignment and spun it into one illustration of what that future might look like. What follows is my best effort to paint my current picture.

(What follows is entirely made up. As of today.)

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Jan 2026 — RTP, NC

Good afternoon everyone!

My name is Travis Starkey, and I’m thrilled to be joining Pinnacle Ventures as Vice President of Partnerships. This transition represents the fulfillment of a long-held dream of mine, and I am eager to get to work. In my first eighteen months, I will be focused on acclimating myself to the firm and laying the groundwork for our life science investments strategy.

Several years ago, I made the decision to shift from education into tech entrepreneurship. Before that transition, much of my work was directly concerned with addressing the various social inequities present in our education system — particularly those correlated with race. As a teacher, an instructional coach, and an administrator, I gained an idea of the contours of the problem and worked with inspiring people. But I wondered if there was a way that I could more effectively tackle the systemic issues in our rapidly-changing world. It was around this time that I began to explore the ethical questions surrounding emerging technologies and wondering how we could ensure that tech-based innovation was a truly equitable and inclusive process. I saw (and still see) minimizing the distance between stated intent and tangible impact to be especially important.

To more directly engage these questions, I joined Google Ventures’ then-brand new southeastern office as a venture associate. There, I coached early-stage start-ups, sourced leads for the firm, and conducted market analysis. After that, I assumed the role of partner for four years, focusing on investor relations and new sector partnerships in the South on behalf of the firm. Most recently, I led day-to-day operations at the American Tobacco Campus as COO. At each point, I learned many valuable lessons and was continually humbled by those I had the opportunity to work with.

All of that has led me here to you. Let’s talk about our work together.

Over its ten year history, Pinnacle Ventures has played a critical role in the growing southeastern tech entrepreneurship space. Its focus on funding early-stage technology firms whose leadership is comprised mostly of women and/or people of color has positioned it as a not only a regional leader, but a global one as well.

At this point, it is far beyond obvious that — not only do diverse teams drive greater results — but that many of our archetypes about who can and should be in leadership are rapidly deteriorating in favor of more equitable ones. This is good for business and for our society.

But we have a long ways to go —

Note a shift in my language here. I’ll be using “we” and “our” to describe our work, as I take my share of responsibility for our work going forward.

Our focus on seed and Series A rounds continues to reap major rewards, as demonstrated by the continued success of our forty-three portfolio companies. A few numbers help illustrate this point:

• Altogether, the valuation of these firms amounts to $5.8b.
• Three companies have exited to the tune of $1.3b.
• Women comprise 68% of our companies’ leadership teams.
• People of color comprise 72% of those same leadership teams.

But where are we headed? As all of you know, we are in the midst of a major market transition. The market has shifted dramatically from a period of semiconductor-driven innovation into one of life sciences-driven innovation. Digital therapeutics, cloud biology, and computational medicine have become commonplace and opened up opportunities we could’ve scarcely dreamed of ten years ago.

Though Pinnacle is a market leader, it lacks an active presence in the life sciences. To build on our leading position and ensure that our values play out in the market, it is critical that we build out a new segment to our firm. Therefore, over the next eighteen months I will be primarily focused on two priorities, in partnership with all of you:

• Initiating partnerships with regional and global life sciences institutions — including hospitals, universities, CROs, and many others — to ensure we are properly attuned to the market.
• Leading the hiring process for the new life sciences partner.

This is important, exciting work — which will happen in tandem with new, critical work to engage with other historically marginalized groups. I am looking forward to working with all of you to make our vision of equity a reality!