Larry Kubal has invested in early-stage information technology companies for over 30 years. He is founder of Labrador Ventures that invested in multiple companies that IPOed including Pandora, ShotSpotter, RocketFuel, Marrone Bio Innovations, Sonic Innovations, and MyPoints. He is an active angel investor and was named one of the top 100 venture capitalists. Previously, Larry was a strategy consultant with Booz, Allen & Hamilton advising Fortune 500 companies. Prior to consulting, he worked in computerized database publishing for McGraw-Hill and for the Academy for Educational Development. Larry was also a founding executive of a venture-backed, PC software company ultimately acquired by Microsoft.
Larry serves on the national board of CollegeSpring, a nonprofit that helps students impacted by poverty to increase their performance on assessments that expand and facilitate post-secondary pathways. He is also a board member of Narrative, a nonprofit that advances literature in the digital age by supporting the finest writing talent and encouraging reading across generations. Larry regularly serves as a mentor to Stanford GSB students. Larry is a long time TEDster and a member of the NationSwell council. Larry graduated with honors from Duke University and received his MBA from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business.
Education
M.B.A. | Stanford Graduate School of Business
B.A. | Duke University
Past Experience
Founder & Managing Partner | Labrador Ventures
Corporate Strategy Consultant | Booz Allen & Hamilton
Market Research Manager | McGraw Hill Publications Company
Data Analyst | Academy for Educational Development
How has education changed your life/your family?
My parents were the first in their families to graduate college. Education was paramount in our household. I was a scholarship student through high school and college. I was lucky and privileged – middle-class family financially, white male, with parents who valued education. Opportunities opened to me.
I reflect on students not as lucky or as privileged. The unfairness, the challenges and barriers, the waste through neglect and bias of so much human potential and of unfulfilled lives lived. We all deserve opportunities to unlock our potential. Fair opportunity to quality education: a societal imperative. How to make it so today?