Interviewee, Po Chi Wo; Interviewer, David Shayt, National Museum of American History
name: label: Collection Interviewer
content: Shayt, David H.
label: Collection Creator
content: Wedge Innovations
setName: label: See more items in
content: Wedge Innovations Records
label: See more items in
content: Wedge Innovations Records / Series 7: Corporate Culture
physdesc: label: Extent
content: 1 Sound recording (Duration 1 hour)
unitdate: label: Date
content: 1996 August 29
container: label: Container
content: Box 26, Item 534.10
label: Container
content: Box 24, Item 534.10
label: Container
content: Box 25, Item 534.10
label: Container
content: Box 27
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Archives Center, National Museum of American History
objectType: label: Type
content: Archival materials
label: Type
content: Moving Images
label: Type
content: Audio
label: Type
content: Sound recordings
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: Location: San Francisco, California

Po Chi Wo is a venture capitalist who was a partner in Advent International (Boston) in 1990 when Advent invested in Wedge Innovations. As a result of this investment, Wo had visiting rights to the monthly Wedge Board of Directors meetings. In this interview he discusses Advent's investment in Wedge. He begins on side one with his own educational background and upbringing, how he became a venture capitalist, his early investment efforts, and how he met Andy Butler in 1990.

Wo continues by discussing how Advent came to invest in Wedge, what was attractive and what was risky about the investment in the SmartLevel, how Advent tried to support Wedge's operations in Asia, and the significance of Wedge's Silicon Valley location. Wo also discusses the due diligence process, how venture capital works in general, the "shared risk strategy," how venture capital firms help start-up companies, and how return on investment is calculated by venture capital firms.

On side two, Wo discusses the expectations of investors in start-up companies, the relationship of the Board of Directors to Wedge and their lack of support for Wedge, the "failure" of Wedge, their lack of management experience, the sale of Wedge, and the possible buyers for Wedge. 

He also discusses Andy Butler's creativity, Wedge's efforts to promote its growth, marketing and sales of the SmartLevel, appealing to "early adopters" of new technology versus a broad base of consumers, the "FUD factor" (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) by consumers of new technologies, the lack of product stability of the SmartLevel, diversification of Wedge's product line, international marketing of the SmartLevel, and the future of smart tools. He ends by describing what it means to be an inventor and how the inventor's artistic drive pushes him or her to overcome his fear of failure.