Upfront's Mark Suster created one of the most exclusive and glitziest gatherings in tech. But there's a dark side.
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.
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 , the configuration of the audience , the illusionist hired to close out the first day , and the cookies in the green room . 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.
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. 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.
"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.
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